Andreas Giacumacatos is Emeritus Professor of History, Critical Analysis and Theory of Architecture. He was born in Nikaia (Greece) and studied music at the National Conservatory of Athens and at the State Academy “Luigi Cherubini” in Florence. He studied at the faculties of architecture of Florence and Venice and prepared his doctoral dissertation at the Department of Architecture of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He developed a research activity and taught history of architecture at the Facoltà di Architettura of the University of Florence from 1981 to 2001. He also taught in the postgraduate program of History of Art of the Facoltà di Lettere of the University of Florence (director Mina Gregori). He then taught history and theory of architecture at the School of Architecture of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and in the postgraduate program in Μuseology of the same University, in which he was the coordinator for architecture. At the same time, since the opening of the Faculty of Theory and History of Art of the Athens School of Fine Arts (ASFA, 2006), he has been teaching history and theory of architecture, from the Renaissance to the modern and contemporary era in both undergraduate and postgraduate programs of the same School. In 2010 he was elected professor of History, Critical Analysis and Theory of Architecture at the Athens School of Fine Arts. Today he directs the postgraduate program in Art and Architecture History and Theory of the Faculty of Theory and History of Art ASFA.
In the 1980s and 1990s he directed the publishing house “Aletheia” in Florence. In 1986 he was a consultant to minister Melina Merkouri for the realization of the Florence European Capital of Culture. He has collaborated with the great Enciclopedia Italiana Treccani on issues of architecture and art. He has translated and edited books from Greek into Italian and vice versa. The translation of the book Future of the ‘classic’ by Salvatore Settis (Nefeli Publications, 2006) won the award of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2008). He is a member of the Associazione Nazionale di Studi Neogreci.
Since 1982 and for 30 years he has been a collaborator and special consultant of the reviews “Architecture in Greece” and “Design + Art in Greece”; from 1987 until today he is an architectural critic for the authoritative newspaper “To Vima”. He was the founder and first coordinator of the Greek Docomomo working party (1990), commissioner of Greece at the Venice International Biennale of Architecture and director of the Hellenic Institute of Architecture of which he was a founding member.
In 1993 he collaborated with the musicologist Apostolos Kostios for the realization of the exhibition of Dimitris Mitropoulos at the Theatrical Museum of La Scala in Milan. He has collaborated with many Greek public organizations as well as with many foreign educational institutes and embassies in Athens, for the implementation of cultural events, lectures and architecture exhibitions (Athens Concert Hall, Archaeological Museum of Thessaloniki, Tellogleion Museum, Benaki Museum, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center, Goethe Institute, Istituto Italiano di Cultura etc.). In 2019, he organized in Athens the international conference “Bauhaus and Greece” in the context of the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Weimar School.
In 2005 the President of the Italian Republic Carlo Azeglio Ciampi awarded him the title of Knight of the Italian Republic for his transnational contribution in the field of education and culture. In 2007 he carried out research activity in Berlin, with a scholarship from the German state. In 2008 he taught, as a visiting professor, in the doctoral program of the School of Architecture of Barcelona. Since 2010 he has been collaborating with GEIDAI (Tokyo University of the Arts) where he taught and developed on-site research on Japanese architecture. He has also taught at the Polytechnic University of Milan and in the postgraduate design program at historic centers of the School of Architecture of the Federico II University of Naples.
He has published and/or edited many books, conference papers, articles and exhibition catalogs in Greek and other European languages. His books have been published by the Cultural Foundation of the National Bank of Greece and by Modulo, Nefeli, Libro, Kastaniotis, Gutenberg, Kapon, Ktirio publications. He has been an evaluator-expert of the Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation and scientific director of European research programs.
He has also been a member of the Central Council of Modern Monuments of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture as well as a member of the Council of Museums of the same Ministry. He is also member of the oldest (1563) Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence.