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Profile Visiting professor is a man of One of the most distinguished and fascinating people ever to appear on the University of Waterloo campus, professor John G. Papaioannou. from Athens, Greece, will be here, until April. His invitation to serve as a visiting professor came from dean Peter Nash, faculty of environmental. studies. Papaioannou has a world reputation as an architect and planner. But he is more than that; he is, in the words of Dean Nash, "truly a Renaissance man." He is an engineer and a concert pianist. a social scientist and a biologist, a mathematician and an administrator, and many other things as well. Even his hobbies are wide ranging - from scuba diving to mountain climbing. He owns Greece's largest musi- cal library and collects paintings, sculpture and musical in- struments. He is involved with life on a broad scale, and seems to be enjoying every minute of it. _ _ . _ . -. . Some term professor Papaioannou an ekistician. This is a term derived from, the ancient Greek word ekos which means house. Ekistics is thus the "science of human settle- ments" and was conceived by CA. Doxiadis, a colleague of Papaioannou. Ekistics is a new discipline which seeks to deal, in a unified way, with the physical, social, economic and technological problems of human settlements. Doxia- dis and Papaioannou together have done much to foster the spread of ekistics throughout the rest of the world. ' " a] many talents l, WWI} JGisiiGreece have become a centre for the launch- ing of such a discipliqe? _ .. Papaioannou and Doxiadis had key roles, both in this pro- gram and in the subsequent broader economic reconstruc- tion of Greece, largely funded by the Marshall Plan. Profes- sor Papaioannou. who is 60 years old this month. was an architectural engineer. He had worked in private practice and in the civil service prior to becoming involved in the re- construction work. "Because we had to build so many completely new communities after the second world war," explains Papaioannou. "During the war, 1,500 villages were coni- pletely wiped out and it was necessary to develop an ex- .tensive, nationwide reconstruction program." Not only was there post-war reconstruction to be done but earthquakes later destroyed more communities. For example. Papaioannou was responsible for the reconstruc- tion of a number of cities and towns following the 1953 earthquake in the Ionian Islands. Subsequently, earthquakes destroyed other parts of Greece. The reconstruction pro- grams stimulated a great deal of study int'o the nature of communities. . "We came up with a number of ideas which formed what we call the theory of ekistics," says Papaioannou. "For ex-' ample, one of them had to do with size. We found that when you have a community of about 7.000 to 8.000 people. with shops and churches and a square and such like in the cen- tre, you have a community that exists on a totally human scale. That is, you can walk from one end to the other. you can know virtually everyone in it, you probably know what is going on at city hall, you know the mayor personally. and so forth. There is great cohesion among the inhabitants. ., Papaioannou and Doxiadis used this knowledge in the planning of the new towns. Moreover. they also plan larger communities so that the 8.000 inhabitant units wm be pre- served. They also found that as a city grows it spreads out, ring- wise, around the commercial centre, In time, pressure is put on the centre which is ringed in so that it can't grow. After a certain point. the centre becomes strangled. This induced Doxiadis to plan Islamabad. the new capital city of Pakistan so that it will grow "along an open axis. in one di- rection only." The centre can freely expand in the same direction as it does so. Islamabad is intended to become a city of several millions. Through such activities the Athens Centre of Ekistics has come into being. It has had a far ranging influence As one of its activities the centre organized a series of sympos- iums on the island of Delos. Experts from a variety of dis- ciplines, disciplines which could be related to the problems of human settlements. are invited. Dean Nash has attend- ed on a number of occasions. . "1:59 success of the symposiums led to the formation of the World Society of Ekistics. with its secretariat in Athens. There are two members on campus: Dean Nash and Dr. Morris Fraser, chairman of systems design. TheCanqdian members of the society will be holding a congress in Town to in March and Papaioaiinou will be attending. The con- gress will deal with problems of the megalopolis. The very concept of the megalopolis came from the stud- ies of the people like professor Papaioannou. It refers to huge urban areas such as the New York-Philadelphia-Balti- more-Washington complex first studied by Jean Gottmann. Another is forming closer at hand . . . extending from Chi- cago through Detroit and Cleveland and down to Pittsburgh. Kitchener-Waterloo will be part of it for the development is an international phenomenon, spreading from Windsor to Oshawa and beyond. Their studies of the megalopolis phenomenon and of the development of still larger systems of settlement have led Papaioannou and Dr. Doxiadis to co-author a startling new book in which they predict the coming of the ecumenopolis, the urbanization of all habitable areas of the world. “I don't say it's what we want," says Papaioannou. "but it is what is going to happen. Human settlement is growing and it is inevitably going to continue to grow for some time to come. It will take at least a century and a half. but the day is coming when every settlement on earth will be part of one great system. Nothing will halt the growth until the earth itself has been saturated with human settlement." He says he has immersed himself in research into the future for the past 12 years and has come to the conclusion that the ecumenopolis is inescapable. Shortages of food. water or energy will not prove to be the limiting factors for ecumenopolis. though they will cause acute and terrible problems in the near future. But in the long run the main limiting factor for ecumenopolis will be the habitable space on earth and this will determine its size and configuration. "All we can do is to start now to arrange this inevitable growth so that the ecumenopolis will meet human needs in an optimum way, rather than in a minimal way," he says. "Many types of ecumenopolis are possible; some good. some bad: our duty is to prepare for the good dnes. as far as possible. ._ He said the ecumenopolis will have to deal with the five basics of human settlement: which are nature, man as an individual) society. shells tthe buildings and structures), and networks troads. railways. telephone systems. These have to do with travel. transportation and communications. “Man occupies the centrél position.“ he says. "The set- tlement has to serve his needs." Professor John G. Papaioannou is visiting the University of Waterloo from Athens, Greece. Professor Papaioannou has a world-wide reputation as one of the foremost planners and architects. At 60 years of age his hobbies range from scuba diving to mountain climbing. . Given this view of the future. professor Papaioannou and Dr. stresses the urgent need for tremendous amounts of re- ?anadian search and planning, A f\ Waterloo Chronicle, Wodnesday, January 29, 1975 - P- 1 "We will need two kinds of people," he says. "First, we will need the specialists and indeed, there will have to be far more specialization within disciplines than we have had up to now. Second, we will need more generalists to inter-re- late the efforts of the specialists." Though he remains deeply concerned by this vision of the future. with perhaps eventually 20 billions of people or more on the earth's surface. Papaioannou is even more disturbed by the speed at which mankind is rushing towards it. “If it reiains Gplanned. life We future will be fright- ful," he warns. - ' "Two per cent -population growth per year is far too rapid," he says. "We just don't know how to adjust to it. The growth rate reached one per cent in 1930; it hit two per cent by about 1960 and has stayed at two per cent since then, though we expect it will now gradually decrease slightly." He sees a need for more of the kinds of activities that are happening on this campus with UW's faculty of environ- mental studies. Professor Papaioamtou was born in Athens; graduated from Athens Technical University in 1935 with an MA. in architectural engineering; did further studies in planning and building construction in England alter the war tttMS-NO. He served for many years in the Greek Ministry of Public Works, later becoming inspector general. In I948 he'was der tailed to the team responsible for the administration of the Marshall Plan in Greece and served. in part. as a liaison with all departments engaged in the reconstruction of Greece. In 7.95 l he became head of the department for economic re- construction of Greece in the Ministry of Economic Curpt- dination. In 1953 he was appointed head of the office for the reconstruction of the Ionian islands. In 7955 he resigned to devote himself to music. However he has continued to con- cern himself with ekistics and in 1964 took over as Director of Research and later as vicerprosiefamt at the Athens Cen- tre of Ekistics. He served with this organization until 1972. He hes elso been e member of Doxiedis Associates, and hes written severe! books dealing with cities of the future end numerous erticles, reports end pepers In 1966 he wes ewerded the Golden Cross of the Greek Phoenix Order. As noted, he is e pienist; elso e herpsichordist end musicologist. He studied piano with his sisters, both of whom studied with with Arthur Schnebel. He has elso been e music teecher, lecturer, redio end television commentator. end hes written severe! books on music