Prodromos Nikiforidis
Biography
Prodromos Nikiforidis was born in Heraklion in Crete. He completed his studies at the School of Architecture in Toulouse and continued his postgraduate studies in the History of Cultures at the University of Toulouse – Le Mirail and in Urban Planning at the Sorbonne.
From 1986 together with Bernard Cuomo he participated in many architectural competitions. Among their most notable projects were a Residential Building in Paris, the Cultural Center and Theater in Menemeni, the Technopolis Building, the Treasury of the Bank of Greece and the New Waterfront of Thessaloniki.
In 2009 they were awarded the Architecture Award by the Greek Institute of Architecture.In 2014 they received the International Union of Architects (UIA) ‘Friendly Spaces Accessible to All’ prize for the redevelopment of the New Waterfront of Thessaloniki. This was among 40 finalists in 2015 for the European Prize for Contemporary Architecture- Mies van der Rohe Award and it also received the Archmarathon Award in 2015 and in 2016 an award at the Triennale of Architecture in Bucharest and the Yan Ye Urban Design Award in Nanjing in China.
In 2016 nikiforidis-cuomo architects were chosen to represent Greece at IN practice, part of the Fuoribiennale in Venice.
In 2018 they undertook the design of the Metropolitan Park of Pavlos Melas in Thessaloniki and in 2020 the design of the redevelopment of the Western part Waterfront of Chania.
Talk Details
The birth of a park
The transformation of the former ‘Pavlos Melas’ military camp into the ‘Pavlos Melas Metropolitan Park’ is the largest redevelopment and the largest park (35 hectares) that has ever been created in Thessaloniki.
The conception and birth of a park is not done from a distance, at a desk in front of a computer. Conception begins with getting to know the land of the former camp, understanding its characteristics, exploring its secret aspects, in unexpected encounters with its walkers, its birds and animals, in watching its changes and seasons, its trees and shrubs. All these and even more are what gradually form a central idea that over time takes the shape of a park. Of course, we do not forget the association with the history of this land, once Ottoman, then Greek, and the stories of the German occupation, imprisonments and executions. Designing a park is a multidimensional act with many direct and indirect partners. It is an unprecedented act that must be communicated to our fellow citizens in order to understand the many unknown aspects of the world of parks, to realize their importance, to raise awareness in order to start seeing green spaces differently. Green is not just a color, it is life.