An architectonic work of representating infrastructure key places of the port, the bureaucratic mechanisms that are so beautiful and intriguing. Particularly the emphasis was put to places that are forbidden or difficult to enter. The work is divided in two sections, the first one concerns the places that were visited (even if they are declared as prohibited) and the second results from a collection of material that has to do with places where no visit was possible. I was not in Greece when I was asked to work on this Piraeus project. Always intrigued though to see hidden aspects of the port, I decided to engineer a look into the Custom’s bureaucratic infrastructure via a remote visit sought through a letter explaining my purpose, signed in my capacity as a professor. I then charged Katerina, an architect and photographer, to enter areas of the port that could only be accessed for such a ‘scientific’ purpose. We obtained the required special permission from the Ministry of Finance and my col-
laborator was guided by an officer into the Customs sheds, where in some cases she was allowed to take photographs. I then asked her to return to photograph some specific areas I felt to be of key importance. These places are important monuments of the port. I thus worked from a distance, as a collector selecting from the abundant material uploaded tin a flickr set that is still visitable. The chemical laboratories controlling the petrol’s quality, their chambers and the specific equipment were particular finds of the port’s contemporary archeology I decided to develop; I wanted to construct archeological finds out of the Customs and the chemical laboratories. This was the first purpose of this work. These chemical laboratories and the fuel research engines are, in 2008, particular places and objects belonging in an ongoing archeology of petrol.
The empty offices of the bureaucratic infrastructure, the customs and their chemical laboratories constitute the living remains of Piraeus port, its contemporary monuments.
Piraeus_panels.indd 1
1/18/2009 8:24:15 PM