Edited by Mantha Zarmakoupi & Simon Richards

The Delos Symposia, which ran from 1963 to 1975, were a ground-breaking series of events dedicated to rethinking and reshaping the built environment to solve the planet’s environmental and demographic problems. Choreographed around the charismatic Greek architect-planner Constantinos Doxiadis, and generating an entirely new “science of human settlements” called “Ekistics,” this ambitious endeavour was run according to ancient Greek practices of the “sympósion”, with banquets, dancing and fancy dress parties taking place aboard cruise ships in the Aegean Sea. Each symposium concluded at the island-city of Delos, where influential figures as diverse as Margaret Mead, Arnold Toynbee, Siegfried Giedion, Buckminster Fuller, Barbara Ward, Jean Gottmann, Kenzō Tange, Jaqueline Tyrwhitt and Marshall McLuhan would formally proceed to the ancient amphitheatre and participate in ceremonial declarations on world issues.