Born in 1913, CADoxiadis (Constantinos Apostolos Doxiadis) is the notable Greek architect and urban planner, best known as the creator or father of Ekistics, the science of human settlements.
His parents were Apostolos Doxiadis and Evanthia Mezeviri. A doctor by profession, his father had the privilege of being Minister of Refugees, Social Welfare and Public Health; and distinguished himself by organizing numerous well-being services for children, drawing on his experience as a pediatrician.
Constantinos (sometimes written as Konstantinos) obtained his degree in architectural engineering (in 1935) from the Technical University of Athens and his doctorate from the University of Berlin-Charlottenburg, a year later.
He began his government service (almost a decade and a half) in 1937, as director of urban planning for the metropolitan area of Athens. During the war (1940-1945) he was Head of the Department of Territorial and Urban Planning of the Ministry of Development and deputy corporal in the Greek army. After World War II, he was appointed Deputy Minister and Director General of the Ministry of Housing and Reconstruction. Later, in 1945-1948, he had the honor of being Minister-Coordinator of the Greek Recovery Program and (in 1948-1951) Undersecretary of the Ministry of Coordination.
In 1951, he founded his private consulting firm, Doxiadis Associates. From a small group of professionals, the company became a conglomerate with a presence in forty countries and five continents. He carried out several prestigious engagements worldwide in: Ghana, Greece, India, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Pakistan, South Vietnam, Spain, Sudan, Syria and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The group provided consulting services to the United Nations and private organizations in many foreign countries.
He was a mentor at several respected universities: the Technical University of Athens, the Athens Ekistics Center, and at the Universities of Chicago, Dublin, Harvard, Michigan, New York, Oxford, Princeton, Yale, Massachusetts, and the Georgia Institute of Technology, Swathmore and Trinity Colleges.
He was the author of several articles and many books in which he shared his personal knowledge of architecture and planning. His writing style is distinctive because he often drew inspiration not only from the past and present, but also often gave his “predictions” about what the future would be like. Among his books are: “Architecture in transition”, “Anthropópolis: city of human development” and “Ekística: Introduction to the science of human settlements”.
His most notable thesis is that urbanization and modernization are part of a long-term process that will eventually culminate in a world city, which he called a Ecumenopolis.
Despite his affliction with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Doxiadis worked and wrote until his last days. He died at the age of 62, on June 28, 1975.
