Mies Comes to Greece: A. James Speyer at NTUA

Abstract

Between 1957 and 1960, A. James Speyer served as a Fulbright visiting professor at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) in the Faculty of Architecture. The Fulbright program was established to foster mutual understanding across the world, and Speyer was a choice candidate for such cultural exchange. An American, Speyer had studied and become a professor under Mies van der Rohe at IIT. In 1957, it was his time to travel to Athens, the city of the Parthenon. Although only a brief exchange, one would think that his three years in Greece promoted the vision of the Fulbright program: the American introduced his Greek students to the work and the educational method of the great German master. Eventually, many of Speyer’s students became important figures in the local architectural community. Nevertheless, Greek architectural historians have only superficially studied Speyer’s impact. The main source of information on his work remains the oral history recorded by Pauline Saliga in 1986. Other historiographical details were independently contributed by some of the former students. Does this mean that Speyer’s work will soon be lost to history? Seventy years have passed, and only a few of his former students are still available for an interview. In Athens, Dimitris and Suzana Antonakakis were available to meet me in their office. My efforts in traveling to Chicago immediately sparked interest, and Antonakakis showed me one of her student projects she has kept all these years, together with her beautiful memories. The project is published here for the first time (figures 1 and 2). How then was Speyer received in Athens?