PELION CHORA

Presentation of Student Work & Book Vernissage

According to myth, the Giants Otus and Ephialtes piled mountains on top of one another in an attempt to reach the gods on Mount Olympus, creating Mount Pelion as a natural “stairway” to the sky. In another account, Pelion was the summer residence of the gods—a place of transition and coexistence between different worlds. Between these two myths—of ascent, claiming territory, and hybrid inhabitation—the course poses its central question: what are the present and future of mountainous territories and, more broadly, of peripheral places? How do mountains, islands, and villages experience processes of urban transformation? How are they affected by the climate and economic crises? And how can we, as architects and urbanists, respond to these challenges?

To mark the conclusion of the course Pelion Chora: Untangling and Reweaving a Mountain, we invite you to a presentation of the students’ work and to the vernissage of the book PELION CHORA, which brings together the work and research developed throughout the course.

For our final gathering, we present the projects, leaf through the book, and “untangle once again” the mountain we collectively constructed over the course of the semester.

As part of the course
PELION CHORA: Untangling and Reweaving a Mountain
by The Countryside Observatory

Tutor: Metaxia Markaki