He Looked Ahead, He Saw the Future

Almost everything has already been written about Elia Zenghelis, the great teacher who remains little known in Greece but left an indelible mark on international architectural education and thought after the modern movement. He began at London’s legendary Architectural Association in the late 1970s and later taught at leading schools around the world. He helped establish the OMA office and influenced generations of architects.

Zenghelis did not write or build extensively. Instead, he developed a strategy for the cities of the future. His interest in the world’s great metropolises, alongside the three-dimensional surrealist paintings created by Zoe Zenghelis, established him as a strategic thinker who looked forward while many movements of his era searched for answers in the past.

The author recalls arriving at the Architectural Association in London in the early 1980s with Maria Kokkinou for postgraduate study. The transition from the National Technical University of Athens to the AA felt overwhelming. Bedford Square seemed like a monastery, filled with black-clad architects and visiting gurus. Peter Cook appeared to lecture wearing a lion’s head, while Zenghelis had just returned from New York in an old Chevrolet, wearing fur.

The collapse of modernism’s certainties had shaken architecture, and the AA had become a center of postmodern exploration. Yet Zenghelis’s criticism of postmodernists was uncompromising because they looked backward. The author says Zenghelis instead opened unfamiliar paths and expanded their imagination.

While seeking a supervisor for a doctoral thesis, the author met Zenghelis, who soon suggested joining his office. At the time, the office was preparing major competitions for the redevelopment of West Berlin. In a small space in Camden Town, Zenghelis worked with three young architects to imagine a new urban landscape, creating an experience the author says remained unforgettable.