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Constantinos Carvouniaris, Petros Pitsiladis
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Akti Chanakian is the northern coast of the town Agioi Theodoroi, located in the eastern part of the prefecture of Korinthia near the border with Attica, built along the Saronic coast, 65 km west of Athens. The area until the 1960s was mostly rural, and since the late 1960s industrial facilities, such as Motor Oil, began to be built in the west of the settlement. Agioi Theodoroi is developed on two axes, the coastal pedestrian road and the old national highway, which today are the commercial core of the area. Since the 1970s the settlement faced significant residential growth due to Athenians considering it a convenient holiday destination.
The abandoned building of Chanikian hotel appears as the largest landmark and center of interest of the node site surrounded by further infrastructures beside the beach.
Epitaph Catharsis
Hanikian Beach Hotel, being the site’s core, is the residue of a mass tourism model. Its gradual decline and eventual desertification indicates the end of an era in which such models have blossomed. Recognising that end and the fall of the hotel into resuetude, the project proposes its burial. This entombed infrastructure should provide fertile ground for a new reconditioned use.Conceiving juxtaposition as an enhancer of perception and pursuing it, the chosen program is that of the traditional hamam. Characterised by simplicity and autarchy, thermal baths aim at spiritual purification through physical cleansing and muscle relaxation. The procedure progresses vertically, bottom to top, and parallel to it, a second route exists providing a historic view of the building and the interventions at once.
