The following is a fictional dialogue between five figures, each offering a unique narrative of Maritime Athens. Some textual parts are drawn directly from myths, travelogues, and poems written by these figures, while other parts are written by the author to weave the texts together and guide the narrative:

Text by Figures in “”

Text by Author in italics

Dialogues on Maritime Athens: Sea Figures, Liquid Ground & a “Light-House”

Five figures, Stavros Niarchos (the oligarch), Renzo Piano (the explorer), Plato (the mythmaker), Zisis Kotionis (the poet) and Gilles Deleuze (the philosopher) are sailing the Aegean Sea, whose levels have risen covering almost entirely the Attica peninsula. Visible are now only the tips of the four mountains: Pentelicon, Parnitha, Hymettus and Aigaleo as well as a partial surface of Lycabetus Hill and the Acropolis. The rest of the city is submerged. 

RENZO PIANO: “Current position: 37o57’5’’ North, 23o34’0’’ East. We are headed to what used to be the port of Phaleron, Greece’s major port three thousand years ago. The soldiers bound for Troy set sail from Phaleron(…) However now, nothing remains of Phaleron’s past glory.” Everything is submerged, including one of my own creations – paradoxically erected in honour of our captain’s name: the cultural centre of Stavros Niarchos Foundation. Its highest point, the roof canopy which housed the Lighthouse, now exists underwater, approximately thirty meters below the surface of the Aegean Sea.

STAVROS NIARCHOS: Quite ironic to sail above it with my own personal vessel; and even more provocative that this vessel is named Atlantis II. 

PLATO: “Atlantis…It was an island larger than Libya and Asia put together, where Poseidon settled the children born to him by a mortal woman in a hill of no great size. He fortified the hill where she lived by enclosing it with concentric rings, alternately of sea and land, and of varying sizes, two rings of land and three of sea.”

RENZO PIANO: An island of beauty. I once set off with my son Carlo in search of beauty – or rather as I prefer to call it – in search of Atlantis; We sailed from Genoa to Ithaca, passing through Phaleron and the Stavros Niarchos Cultural Centre, when Athens was still above water.

STAVROS NIARCHOS: As I recall, Atlantis too sunk into the ocean. “Zeus, the god of gods, who ruled according to law, and was able to see into such things, perceived that the Atlanteans, an honourable race, was in a woeful plight, and collected all the gods to inflict punishment on them.” After the great flood, Atlantis and all its might vanished forever – similarly to what has now happened to Athens.

ZISIS KOTIONIS: “‘Tell me where Athens is’ the romantic poet asked the god of the Archipelago, as he mentally wandered between Europe and Asia. He wondered if the entire city had sunk or if there is some sign left to unravel and approach it on his sea voyage. Suddenly, in his long mourning for the lost city, ‘calling to new deeds’, he saw the Athens of the future ‘opening now like a flower’.” Reading this poem, I once envisioned a passage from “Athens of the Athens Basin” to “Athens of the Attica Peninsula”; an Athens surrounded by the sea – freed from the inland forces that tether it.

GILLES DELEUZE: Athens as an island…“Geographers say there are two kinds of islands. Continental islands are accidental, derived islands. They are separated from a continent, born of disarticulation, erosion, fracture; they survive the absorption of what once contained them. Oceanic islands are originary, essential islands. Some are formed from coral reefs and display a genuine organism.”

ZISIS KOTIONIS: In that case, Athens is continental, and Atlantis is originary. Unlike Atlantis, which was born from the sea, Athens was once part of the Greek mainland.

PLATO: “Indeed, what used to say about Athens was true and plausible enough; for in those days, boundaries were drawn at the Isthmus, and on the mainland side at the Cithaeron and Parnes ranges coming down to the sea between Oropus on the right and the Asopus river on the left. Athens ran out like a long peninsula from the mainland into the sea, and the sea basin round it was very deep. Back then, the ancient Athenians were renowned all over Europe and Asia for the beauty of their persons and for the many virtues of their souls, and of all men who lived in those days, they were the most illustrious.” 

RENZO PIANO: Until Athens ceased to be virtuous and beautiful. “Kallithea, the neighbourhood we are now sailing over, was located only a few kilometres from the centre. Its name meant beautiful view. But over time, despite the promise of its name, its natural beauty eroded, and the panorama became obscured. The Stavros Niarchos Cultural Centre became an artificial hill, whose gentle slopes wished to restore the enchanting Aegean to the landscape”, only to eventually be submerged as well.

STAVROS NIARCHOS: I am dropping anchor. We must be right above Athen’s old Water Square, only a couple of meters away from the Cultural Centre’s old canal. Floating boat fragments are drifting upon this liquid ground; loosely bound to the Aegean seabed via anchors and buoys, currently glowing from within. They are oddly reminiscent of my Atlantis vessel. And yet, they make up a distinct architectural figure, a lighthouse, guiding sailors into what has now become an Athenian Archipelago. 

ZISIS KOTIONIS: It seems that this light vessel, this “Light-House”, marks an origin point that goes beyond its immediate reach and calls out to Athens’ and more widely the Mediterranean’s contemporary pressures; quite unorthodox… this architecture doesn’t dominate; instead, it floats, adapting to the shifting grounds and abandoning the image of the master monument.

 Zisis Kotionis, Tell me where Athens is, Athens, Greece: Agra, 2006, [in Greek].

 Gilles Deleuze, Desert Islands and Other Texts, 1953-1974, edited by David Lapoujade, translated by Michael Taormina, Semiotext(e) Foreign Agents Series, Los Angeles, CA: Semiotexte, 2004.

 Plato, Timaeus and Critias, translated by Desmond Lee, T. K. Johansen, 3rd edition, London, United Kingdom: Penguin Classics, 2008.

 Carlo and Renzo Piano, Atlantis: A Journey in Search of Beauty.