Research Programme entitled "Contemporary Greek Cultural Landscapes: An Aerial Atlas"

The results of the two-year research programme entitled "Contemporary Greek Cultural Landscapes: An Aerial Atlas", in which postdoctoral researchers and external associates of the Department of Geography of the Harokopio University participated, with scientific supervisor Professor Kostis Hatzimichalis, were presented on Saturday, 24 April 2010, at the University’s premises. The programme was funded exclusively by the John S. Latsis Public Benefit Foundation for the 2008-2010 two-year period, in the framework of its initiative to support postdoctoral research in Greece.

The research is an attempt to help identify and record the contemporary Greek cultural landscape and introduce new tools and methods aimed at understanding its multiple parameters. It captures the multiple approaches for interpreting a landscape, beyond the conventional descriptions of landscapes as ‘beautiful’, ‘picturesque’ and ‘touristic’, which fail to recognise or conceal the social processes that produce the landscapes. The programme was implemented using an innovative methodology to locate landscapes and approach them in a multidimensional way, which is based on writing a scenario to select landscapes, using (low and high oblique) aerial photographs, writing short scientific texts, preparing maps and diagrams, taking terrestrial photographs and looking for extracts from literary texts.

The first 134 landscapes, which have been studied across Greece, are presented in the form of a dynamic electronic geography atlas, which is available to the public at www.greekscapes.gr.