Through the lens of a travelling architect: A talk by award-winning architect Thanasis Ikonomou

Award-winning architect Thanasis Ikonomou tells us the story of his architectural journey across North America and Europe as he discovers treasures of each place, mourns the loss of smallness and the rise of a globalised mass-market architecture that is replacing more individualistic local styles. Through his work over the last decade and his five-year journey through Greece, Thanasis shares his list of observations and questions that he journaled during his sabbatical away from professional practice. He will be expressing fundamental architectural design principles from a humanist lens using his experiences and projects as case studies, talking about designing spaces for how they feel rather than how they look.
Thanasis is a Greek Canadian architect and photographer based in Athens, Greece. He holds Bachelors (2011) and Masters (2013) degrees in Architecture frm DAljousied University (Halifax, Canada) after earning a Bachelor of Science from the University of British Columbia in 2008.
He has worked for numerous award-winning studios globally including Olson Kundig Architects in Seattle, Office of Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) in Rotterdam and Architecture Research Office in NYC and has also collaborated with Juyna Ishigami (Tokyo).
He is the recipient of various accolades. In 2021, Thanasis displayed his collaborative work with Serhan Ahmet within the Cyprus Pavilion at the Venice Biennale and in 2022 his first two solo architectural projects earned national recognition: runner up for "Best First Project by a Young Architect" and finalist for his public projects in his ancestral village Epirus by DoMA. In eoer his project House in a House was selected by "Open House Athens" to be included in its architectural tour of the city.
Moon Station Athens is a pop-up salon that connects writers, artits and other creatives living in Athens or passing through. It's the brainchild of novelist, writer and former TV journalist Rana Haddad and is hosted in the studio of interior designer and artist Olympia Zographos www.zographosdesigns.com
Filmed and edited by Iason Athanasiadis