Redefining an Ancient Trail in Delphi: A Contemporary Design Narrative

Anna-Maria Visilia (North Dakota State University)
Christina Andreopoulou (Agricultural University of Athens)

This paper aims at redefining through design an ancient trail in Delphi. The Delphico Topio (Delphic Landscape) is regarded as an important venue to create a contemporary design narrative and redefine an ancient path in ways to communicate the memories, the stories, and the narrations of the place, its history and its people. Landscapes carry collective memories besides the topographical and morphological characteristics of each site. Stories have always been a way to maintain the collective memory of places through naming, sequencing, revealing and concealing, gathering and opening (Potteiger, 1998, Halbwachs, 2013). Each place is best understood when stories and physical characteristics are revealed through design. Delphi holds very important cultural values since it was considered the center of the Earth in ancient times (Fontenrose 1980) and, therefore, provides a perfect case study to examine this concept. The Delphic landscape was the inspiration for the construction of the famous archaeological site of the oracle of Delphi. From prehistoric times the path examined was used from the palmers who debarked in the nearby town of Kirra in order to reach the famous oracle of Delphi. It connects Delphi and Kirra, the mountain and the sea. The specific landscape and its stories become an inspiration and the starting point for the design process for its redefinition for current uses. Our initial investigation was based on collecting ancient and contemporary stories and narrations of the Delphic landscape through site analysis and bibliographical research. Also, our bibliographical research examined the decoding of the design principles of narrative landscapes through a number of case studies. A contemporary design narrative for this ancient trail is finally proposed based on a landscape typology that is expected to develop landscape design tools and methodology that consider memory and narration as important components of the design process.