Crossroads

Effie Arapakou

Considering the urban space as the place where the action-reaction system between people takes place, the urban space is not far from being identified with the place of encounter, superposition and conflict in the city. These conditions seem more intense and transitional in the city corners, the crossroads. The street corners concentrate the activity, the image of the entire area and express the nature of the city as a meeting place, a place of social interchange. The crossroads affect man’s experience, make him seek his own space relative to the others and finally reveal the city to its citizens. In global scale and relations, crossroads become the places of culture, communication and exchange. Taking the exhibition Cities, Corners by M. de Sola Morales into consideration, crossroads are categorized and perceived as buildings-points, interacting fields, nodes and finally networks in the cities. The project aims to define and represent crossroads in Athens, focusing on the Hilton area since it constitutes a distinctive district in the city but can also be fitted on all categories.