ARCHITECTURE

Warlamis studied Architecture in Vienna and was active in the radical Viennese architectural avant-garde of the 1970s with exhibitions and experimental architectural projects. He developed into a global creator, a Renaissance “Homo universalis” who, as Prof. Dr. Volker Fischer, (art historian, associate of the German Museum of Architecture and the Museum of Applied Arts in Frankfurt) writes, had long been considered a species that had disappeared.

Through his close collaboration with Prof. Karl Schwanzer (assistant to Josef Hofmann) and Prof. Norbert Schlesinger, Warlamis is among the direct successors of the tradition of the “Wiener Werkstätte”, which he revived and continued with his holistic way of working.

Among his important architectural works stand out: His award-winning work for the Musikhalle in Hamburg, the Church of the Glorious Message in Waidhofen / Thaya, Austria (2004), the Waldviertel Art Museum with the Sculpture Park (2009) and the unique idea of designing a Crypt for the Apostle Paul.

With the support of the European Union in 1995, he declared Santorini a World Model of Ecological Architecture.

The “House of the Clouds” in Veria, his old family house that he rebuilt in 1979, was a rejuvenating architectural intervention in the urban fabric of a provincial town.

he himself writes.

On architectural language

Architectural language is not a privilege of architects but a tool of the global community of all people. I prefer a polymorphic architecture with an obvious composition of various categories of images, rather than a “monolithic” and stylized architectural type. I am in favor of abolishing the hierarchy of elitism of images. I like to mix and bring into relationships images that are different from each other. Folklore or images with historical, personal, artistic elements, kitsch images. The ideal architecture for me is global, fantastic, like André Malraux’s “Imaginary Museum”, with obvious connections with all cultures, with all eras, with the respective human creations, in general with every image-creation of heterogeneous levels and certainly with figurative forms of nature, the universe and material and spiritual micro- and macrostructures. For this reason, the iconography of my architecture is always organic, natural, sensual, and emotional, without losing its poetry and spirit. It is eternal and aims to understand and continue the work of my teacher, the creator of the Architecture of the “Endless House” by Frederick Kiesler.

I demand an architecture of silence. I demand an architecture of non-spaces. Non-space – unapproachable, incomprehensible, imperceptible. Non-spaces for a state architecture. Non-spaces – unregistrable, without coordinates, without data, without topology – n place. Spaceless, non-consumable, useless. Non-spaces – reserves of freedom of peace, tranquility, love. I demand a joyful architecture full of poetry and life. I demand an architecture for sensitive communication, not as a product of dictation with the content of fear and psychological violence. I demand the spirit against the ideology of the metaphysical anguish of man. I demand an alternative architecture for a perpetual movement of transformation as an expression of a mobilization against the principle of inertia. I demand less architecture.

Architecture and Democracy

Within the architectural space of cities, the priority of the quality of human contacts is always the basis for a democratic organization. Architecture cannot be limited to its “constructive”, material, role but should be a medium-carrier for a complex staging of people’s daily lives. Architecture cannot be the cheap attention of an aesthetic mood, but the experiences, communication, emotions of human relationships from which a post-architectural space is created, now human. The use of cities, streets, squares, houses, etc. is not done today in a natural, organic way. It is more a result of premeditated education, of the so-called “good conduct” that is based on the anxiety of the whole, on the conduct of submission to a complex mechanism for economic and productive quantifications. The freest spontaneity is a result of pre- and early childhood education or of freedom and love. Movement, rhythm, choreography in space, take on basic fundamental importance in the direction of the “thousands of actors” of everyday life. Movement of submission, love, violence, joy, freedom. I propose that in early childhood education, in parallel with musical education and the education of personal creation, there should be an experiential introduction to free movement and eurythmy, so that the “extras of the cities” can move like free beings in their own space of creation. I believe that this proposal is one of the most interesting on a European and global scale for the safe assurance of democratic life. The living organization and the systems of action and reaction, certainly not those of unilateral composition as is done with the mass media, are among the last remaining human reserves for the defense of this "bare life" of ours.

The House of Tomorrow

The tenants of my house are at the end of the 20th century. People like you and me. I do not want to separate myself from them in order to predetermine their artistic possibilities. I also live in this house. All the usual functions have been removed from this dwelling. No bedroom, no living room, no bathroom, no kitchen, no hallway, just one large space, improvised, unprepared, an endless playhouse for a large family. The same goes for children as for elderly and frail people who feel weak. In the middle of the space there is a large crypt. There we keep our old furniture, our artistic treasures, our old ideas! If someone wishes, they can have eye contact or they can also take or leave a piece. Chaos and humor prevail. My house was built according to the latest European standards.

what they said...

Exhibition "Une Cite Imaginaire" D.A.M., Frankfurt 1985

“For me, Varlamis is a rare architect who not only does not build as architects usually build and does not wait for assignments, but rather integrates his activities into the forecourt of the building. He sets people in motion and ultimately does what many architects ask of their work but fail to do, i.e. to give people awareness and a relationship with the environment. Added to this is the fact that Varlamis is a man who inspires (as a person I greatly appreciate him) and thus a creative intensity is combined with a man who is basically enthusiastic just by his very existence. I find these wonderful and important.”

Exhibition “L'Europe des Createurs”, Grand Palais, Paris 1989.

“Makis Warlamis belongs to the rarest architects I have met in my life. But is he an architect? Isn't he more a visionary of dreams of the universe, a reformer of the world, an inventor of utopian cities? Isn't he more and above all an artist, a sculptor, a player of spaces, forms and colors, a space-player? Or is he all of these together, one next to the other and at the same time a reformer of the world, a visionary, a master builder, a sculptor as an architect. The concept of Architecture for Warlamis always contains a utopian element. But Warlamis’ utopia is defined by the vision of what once was, or more correctly, what could have been in a golden age at the beginning of all time”

H.A.M.B.U.R.G. Exhibition, Museum of Modern Art, Vienna 1982

"The work of Warlamis is extremely important. In the crisis of urban architecture, Warlamis responds, like a utopian in the long tradition of architectural utopias, with a large series of transformation experiments. Warlamis escapes the current concept of style and it is not easy to classify his work in the known movements, although I distinguish an affinity with the monumental works of everyday subjects of Oldenburg and in parallel with the work of Duchamp - in the beginning the idea, the design as the basis of a work of art. ...Warlamis, as an artist, uses and filters contemporary art as a catalyst to develop a new questioning of the functioning of the city and to take art out of its isolation, from the Museum, to solidify itself in the core and life of the city. "

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YES YOU CAN…
we made the video you can see below and with it we want to inspire you not only to paint, but also to create a small neighborhood… why not become a small architect.

With the Warlamis method it is easy…

ARCHITECTURE

ARCHITECTURE

he himself writes.

what they said...

THE TOWER OF ALEXANDER IN EDESSA

SOUNDPROOF WALL IN AUSTRIA

THE ATTICA MANSION IN ATHENS

ARCHITECTURAL PROJECTS IN AUSTRIA

ATHENS - ILISSION GROVE

THE ART MUSEUM IN AUSTRIA

THE TEMPLE OF THE HARMONY MESSAGE IN AUSTRIA

THE KIOSKERS OF DEMITRIA FESTIVAL IN THESSALONIKI

THE HOUSES OF SANTORINI

MINISTRY OF MACEDONIA AND THRACIE PAVILION

THE CRYPT OF THE APOSTLE PAUL

Ελληνικοί τόποι

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