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Demetri Porphyrios (Greek: Δημήτρης Πορφυρίου; born 1949) is a Greek architect and author who practices architecture in London as principal of the firm Porphyrios Associates. In addition to his architectural practice and writing, Porphyrios has held a number of teaching positions in the United States, the United Kingdom and Greece. He is currently a visiting professor at the Yale School of Architecture.
While Porphyrios is considered to be an exponent of New Classical architecture, he has designed buildings in both the Gothic and classical idioms. Moreover, he has designed occasional buildings in a more modernist style, notably the glass curtain-walled office block One Forbury Square (2003) in Reading, Berkshire, England.[1]
YouTube Encyclopedic
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'Extreme Visions' (long trailer)
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A Larger View of the World: The First Decade of the Driehaus Prize (2012)
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The Way We Live - A Modern Architecture Conversation
Transcription
[music] Wentworth Miller: Could two buildings be more different in Wentworth Miller: concept and vision? Wentworth Miller: Whitman College, Princeton's first modern, four-year Wentworth Miller: dormitory, is constructed in the traditional Gothic style. Wentworth Miller: Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay, the online auction Wentworth Miller: giant, gave $30 million to the University for the $136 Wentworth Miller: million project. Wentworth Miller: It was designed by Demetri Porphyrios, who is Wentworth Miller: unapologetic for his traditional approach to Wentworth Miller: architecture. Demetri Porphyrios I'm interested in doing Gothic Demetri Porphyrios buildings which are robust, meaning that they will have a Demetri Porphyrios longevity of life. Demetri Porphyrios So the external wall has to be properly constructed in stone, Demetri Porphyrios which is bonded with a brick support behind it, Demetri Porphyrios et cetera, et cetera. Demetri Porphyrios And it should be a wall structure which will have to Demetri Porphyrios have at least a lifespan of about 200, 250 years. Wentworth Miller: Far from traditional, the Lewis Science Library, which Wentworth Miller: also houses the Princeton Institute for Computational Wentworth Miller: Science, is unlike any building Wentworth Miller: you've never seen before. Wentworth Miller: New in its architectural forms, new in it's methods of construction. Wentworth Miller: The project cost over $74 million. Wentworth Miller: Designed by the famous and controversial architect, Frank Wentworth Miller: Gehry, the building was primarily funded by a Wentworth Miller: $60 million gift from Peter Lewis, the highly creative, former Wentworth Miller: CEO of Progressive Insurance. Wentworth Miller: Peter makes no bones about his belief that Princeton also Wentworth Miller: needs architecture that looks to the future. Peter Lewis: Frank, in my view, is the first great Peter Lewis: architect of the 21st century, probably more than the Peter Lewis: greatest architect of the 20th century. Peter Lewis: Although he might be that as well. Peter Lewis: Whether history validates my view, remains to be seen. Peter Lewis: No architect, no builder is addressing the future any more Peter Lewis: than Frank is today. Craig Webb: I think we have afew kind of unwritten rules. Craig Webb: But one of them is if it just looks anything like something Craig Webb: anybody has done, no. Craig Webb: And the second rule is, if it looks like Craig Webb: anything we've done, no. Wentworth Miller: Two builders, those two very Wentworth Miller: different visions. [music] Wentworth Miller: Much of the story of Whitman College is a story of stone. Wentworth Miller: Finding stone, cutting stone, finding ways to support the Wentworth Miller: weight of stone, and finding craftsmen who have the skills Wentworth Miller: to construct stone buildings with techniques no longer in Wentworth Miller: general use. [music] John Zeigler: The field stone, the bluestone, each piece was John Zeigler: handled, people estimate roughly eight to nine times, John Zeigler: from the time it came out of the quarry to the time it got John Zeigler: put through the original guillotine, placed in a John Zeigler: pallet, shipped to the site. John Zeigler: And then picked up, chipped away, piece by piece, by the John Zeigler: masons, up to 77 stone masons at one point in time, with 30 John Zeigler: laborers assisting them. John Zeigler: The limestone is saw-cut or hand-chiseled to a particular John Zeigler: location on the building. John Zeigler: If you looked around the site, you'll see many of those John Zeigler: pieces of limestone sitting on pallets. John Zeigler: They all have numbers on the bottom of them, because they John Zeigler: all have a precise location on the building. John Zeigler: The field stone was about 5,000 tons, somewhere around John Zeigler: 175,000 pieces individually cut on site. John Zeigler: The limestone was approximately 2,500 tons, John Zeigler: somewhere around 38,000 to 40,000 pieces of limestone. Wentworth Miller: Much of Demetri's work was devoted to Wentworth Miller: the site plan and the creation of courtyards. Wentworth Miller: One of the interesting refinements, which he borrowed Wentworth Miller: from Ralph Adams Cram's Graduate College, is that the Wentworth Miller: courtyards are not exactly square, but just one or two Wentworth Miller: degrees off a right angle. Wentworth Miller: Most visitors probably aren't conscious of this difference. Wentworth Miller: But it makes the experience of the courtyards mysteriously Wentworth Miller: fascinating. Meg Whitman: You come up to the building and you just sort Meg Whitman: of step back and say, wow. [music] Meg Whitman: Interestingly, it may sound simplistic, but I did it Meg Whitman: because it gave another 125 kids a year a Meg Whitman: chance to go to Princeton. Meg Whitman: Beginning, middle and end of story, Meg Whitman: because I am so fond of this place. Meg Whitman: I adored my time here. Meg Whitman: And I want other people to have that same opportunity. Demetri Porphyrios: We've taken up the challenge of how Demetri Porphyrios: you can actually work within contemporary industrial Demetri Porphyrios: production and at the same time give the sense of tactile Demetri Porphyrios: personality to a building. Demetri Porphyrios: So the materials that we use are always what I Demetri Porphyrios: call natural materials. Demetri Porphyrios: Materials which are not going through an industrial Demetri Porphyrios: production of manufacture. Demetri Porphyrios: That does not project the coldness of industrial Demetri Porphyrios: production, but it actually presents a more kind of humane Demetri Porphyrios: face, something that you can actually touch, a building Demetri Porphyrios: that you will love to actually touch. Demetri Porphyrios: A building that you would love to kind of lean against, to a Demetri Porphyrios: talk with a friend or whatever. Meg Whitman: You might have heard a funny story. Meg Whitman: There was a summer executive program here. Meg Whitman: And they were watching the finishing touches being put on Meg Whitman: Whitman College this summer. Meg Whitman: And one of the group said to one of the faculty members at Meg Whitman: Princeton, "Boy, when Princeton renovates a building, they Meg Whitman: really go to it." Meg Whitman: They thought this had been here for 100 years. Wentworth Miller: While the plans for Whitman College were Wentworth Miller: moving forward, the impossible occurred. Wentworth Miller: Princeton decided that Frank Gehry, who had been rejected Wentworth Miller: in the past, could design a building for the Wentworth Miller: campus after all. Peter Lewis: Harold Shapiro was retiring as president. Peter Lewis: And there was a dinner over at Forbes College. Peter Lewis: Harold takes me to the corner, and he says, "We can get a Peter Lewis: Gehry building on campus." Peter Lewis: I said, "Harold, there's no way." Peter Lewis: And he said, "Oh yes, we can." Peter Lewis: And he said, "We have a need. Peter Lewis: We have to build the science library. Peter Lewis: We have a wonderful site for it. Peter Lewis: The budget's $60 million. Peter Lewis: Jerry, the provost and I, got it all figured out. Peter Lewis: And we think it would be a great spot to have a Gehry Peter Lewis: building on the campus." Peter Lewis: I said something like, "Harold, I don't think it's possible. Peter Lewis: But if you can get it done, I'll pay for it." [music] Wentworth Miller: Created with 88,000 pounds of stainless Wentworth Miller: steel from Sweden, 400 tons of structural steel, 35,000 Wentworth Miller: square feet of Canadian clay brick, and almost 25,000 Wentworth Miller: square feet of glass, the design of Louis Library pushed Wentworth Miller: the limits of construction complexity. [music] Frank Gehry: Why these shapes? Frank Gehry: Why do you twist and turn like that? Frank Gehry: Why would anybody do that? Frank Gehry: It has to do with my belief that a building can have Frank Gehry: feeling, that there can buildings that are deadly Frank Gehry: inert and don't give you anything. Frank Gehry: And I think my favorite buildings feel. Wentworth Miller: The Lewis Science Library represents an Wentworth Miller: attempt to rethink what a library does in 21st century terms. Shirley M. Tilghman: The really intriguing, interesting ideas Shirley M. Tilghman: in science increasingly are happening at the boundaries Shirley M. Tilghman: between sciences, fields like biophysics, fields like Shirley M. Tilghman: geochemistry. Shirley M. Tilghman: These are fields that if you had said those names 50 years Shirley M. Tilghman: ago, no one would have known what you were talking about. Shirley M. Tilghman: The library is in fact sort a representation of that. Shirley M. Tilghman: It is a way of our saying the collective knowledge of the Shirley M. Tilghman: natural sciences is now brought together in a single Shirley M. Tilghman: place on the Princeton campus. Craig Webb: The Tree House, which I don't know where that Craig Webb: name came from, but that was originally the map room. Craig Webb: And I think it still contains a lot of map cases. Craig Webb: And the way the roof planes really hang out over the side Craig Webb: of the building and create a kind of protective Craig Webb: environment. Craig Webb: Because it has these roofs that are cantilevered off the Craig Webb: side of the building, kind of shade the ground around them. Craig Webb: And then really connect the building to the trees, which I Craig Webb: guess is where tree house idea came from. Craig Webb: I love the atrium that comes through here and the Craig Webb: exploration of color, which is related to painting and to Craig Webb: perception of the world around us. Craig Webb: In particular on this building, I Craig Webb: was looking at Kandinsky. Craig Webb: His paintings have lots and lots of different colors. Craig Webb: And the part that's the most interesting to me is the way Craig Webb: the colors relate to each other. Craig Webb: And then the most exciting part is then you finally paint Craig Webb: the building. Craig Webb: And a lot of really unexpected things start to happen. Craig Webb: Because now you're dealing in full scale. Craig Webb: There's a lot of daylight that comes into this building. Craig Webb: And the colors start to bounce, one off the other. Craig Webb: It produces a whole different palette of colors that you Craig Webb: weren't quite expecting. [music] Wentworth Miller: Two very different buildings, two Wentworth Miller: extreme visions. Wentworth Miller: In very different ways, they embody an ideal of excellence, Wentworth Miller: of doing things better than you did before. Wentworth Miller: And in very different ways, they both encapsulate the Wentworth Miller: deep-rooted ideals of Princeton University as a Wentworth Miller: university. Wentworth Miller: They embody both the venerable traditions that provide links Wentworth Miller: with its past and the creativity and innovation with Wentworth Miller: which it will lead us into the future. [music]
Education
Porphyrios studied at Princeton University where he earned a M.Arch. (Master of Architecture), and a Ph.D. in the history and theory of architecture. He wrote his Ph.D. thesis on the Finnish architect Alvar Aalto, in which he described the themes he believed had generated Aalto's work (typology, urbanism and nature), while arguing that Aalto's work was the end of the line for modernist architecture. Published later as Sources of Modern Eclecticism (London: Academy Editions, 1982), the book was presented as a structuralist analysis of Aalto's architecture; its author described as having been influenced by the philosophers Michel Foucault and Louis Althusser.
In his writing, Porphyrios has advocated a "classicism without style" (which he called "Doricism"), similar to the Nordic Classicism that prevailed in early 20th-century Scandinavia in the work of architects such as Kay Fisker in Denmark, Gunnar Asplund in Sweden, and in the early work of Alvar Aalto in Finland.
Career
In the 1980s, Porphyrios regularly contributed to the journal Architectural Design, advocating the classical and vernacular as rational architectural languages. In 2002, Princeton University commissioned him to design a residential college (Whitman College) in the Collegiate Gothic style, which was completed in 2007. Following Princeton, Porphyrios began work on Selwyn College, Cambridge and Magdalen College, Oxford, adding his neoclassical style to the two ancient British universities.
Notable buildings
- The Pavilion, The Battery, New York, USA (1992).
- Pitiousa town, Spetses, Greece (1993)
- Three Brindleyplace Office Building, Birmingham, UK (1998)
- The Grove Buildings, Magdalene College, Oxford, UK (1999)
- Duncan Galleries, Nebraska, USA (2002)
- Interamerican Headquarters Office Building, Athens, Greece (2002)
- Ann's Court, Selwyn College, Cambridge, UK (2003)
- One Forbury Square, Reading, Berkshire, UK (2003)
- Seven Brindley Place Office Building, Birmingham, UK (2004)
- Whitman College, Princeton University, USA (2007)
Bibliography
Books by Demetri Porphyrios
- Demetri Porphyrios. Sources of Modern Eclecticism: studies on Alvar Aalto (London: Academy Editions; New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982).
- Demetri Porphyrios and A. Papadakes. Classicism is not a style (London and New York: St. Martin's Press, 1982).
- Demetri Porphyrios. Selected buildings and writings (London: Academy Editions, Architectural Monographs, No. 25, 1993).
- Demetri Porphyrios (editor). Building and rational architecture (London: Academy Editions, 1995).
- Demetri Porphyrios. Classical architecture (London: Andreas Papadakis Publishers, 1998).
- Demetri Porphyrios. Porphyrios Associates: the allure of the classical (New York: Rizzoli, 2016).
External links
- Princeton Weekly Bulletin article on Whitman College
- Porphyrios Associates
- Yale School of Architecture
References
- ^ "One Forbury Square". Retrieved April 27, 2024.