Crises and/of representations

Abstract

This article focuses on the Athens Polytechnic, an emblematic site that has been the epicentre of historical ruptures during which it has been extensively graffitied. It is based on a corpus consisting of graffiti writings on this particular building during three key crises moments in Greece's modern history. It critically examines an architectural drawing of graffiti writings on the edifice and reflects on the methods followed to produce this drawing of writings. The article develops in four parts each of which gradually unfolds the relationship between crisis and representation. Crises and representations are seen as opportunities for criticality and, by extension, sites of critique. By studying key moments of crises of representation in the public domain, as these are expressed in graffiti writing, the Polytechnic becomes the site of writing that registers the various responses to the overwhelming forces of crises. As a representation of these crises, the site of drawing is turned into a montage table—an ‘atlas’ in Warburg's terms—where these crises are resituated, or rather recomposed, thus forging relations and producing new nexuses of meaning. Ultimately, the article aims to show how representations and/of crises have the capacity to operate as sites of knowledge production whilst introducing an architectural design research method to study urban phenomena.