Despotopoulos Ioannis (1903 - 1992)

Born in Smyrna in Asia Minor in 1903, his family soon moved across the straits to the island of Chios, where he grew up and finished school. In 1921 he enrolled in the School of Architecture at the N.T.U.A., but then left for Weimar, where he enrolled in the Bauhaus School.

In 1927 he graduated from the School of Architecture in Hanover, while maintaining close ties with the Bauhaus school. He returned to Greece in 1930. In 1943 he was elected Professor of Special Building Science and Architectural Compositions at the School of Architecture at the N.T.U.A., from which position he was dismissed in 1946, for his political convictions.

From 1947 to 1961 he settled in Sweden, at the invitation of the Swedish State foundation “SVENEKA INSTITUTET”, where he worked as a free-lance architect and taught as professor extraordinarius at the polytechnic institutes of Stockholm and Goeteborg and the University of Uppsala. In 1959 he gained First Prize in the town planning concept tender for the Athens Cultural Centre.

In 1961 he returned to Greece and was re-appointed professor at the N.T.U.A. In 1968 he retired from the N.T.U.A. He was invited to take over as Professor in the Chair of Building Science and Architectural Compositions at the Stuttgart Technical University, but he resigned and returned to Greece. In 1974 he submitted his candidacy for the Academy of Athens, but was unsuccessful in his attempt to be admitted. He died in 1992.

His works include the Church of the Magaziotissa on Chios; the Municipal baths of Chios; the Sotiria Sanatorium in Athens 1932-35; the Tripoli Sanatorium 1936-40; the Hospital at Asvestohori, 1937-40; the Chios Movie Theatre; the School Complex at the Academia Platonos. From his extensive preliminary plans for the Cultural Centre, only the building for the Athens Conservatory was carried out (1969-85). He wrote extensively, but most of his written work remains unpublished. Recently the University Press of the N.T.U.A. published his book “I Ideologiki Domi ton Poleon” (The Ideological Structure of Cities).

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