VASILLIS CONSTANTINE SGOUTAS - 1934 - 2025

It is with great sadness that we share with you that Vasillis Sgoutas the father of Kostas and Dimitris Sgoutas, passes away peacefully on the morning of 27 December.  His funeral will take place on Wednesday 31 December in the city of Athens where he lived.

He was 91 years of age.

Our heartfelt condolences go to his sons Kostas and Dimitris and their families.

Vasillis 'Basil' Constantine Sgoutas attended Bishops from 1949 - 1951.  He Matriculated in the First Class with Distinctions in Latin, French, German and Mathematics.  

He won several Special Prizes in his Matric year, viz., for Latin, Greek and the First Pauling Prize for French (1951).

The December 1951 edition of the Diocesan College magazine contains a piece he wrote in French entitled: "LES PLAISIRS DU CAMPING".  As a mood study, it reflects on the still evening, so calm and silent, and the diffused glow of the dreamy moon.   

Vasillis was a member of the Democritus Society, as well as the Ten Club.   

After Bishops Vassilis proceeded to UCT where he studied Architecture on a Theron Scholarship.

A distinguished career in Architecture followed, which can be seen from the citation written by his school friend Jeremy Lawrence (1952FH: PM 1953), for the Robert Gray Award given to him in 2024.

Born in Athens in 1934, Vassilis Sgoutas moved, with his family, to South Africa after the Second World War and from 1949 to 1951 was at Bishops (where he was known as “Basil”).  In 1951 he matriculated in the First Class, with distinctions in Latin, French, Greek and Mathematics.  He then graduated in Architecture at the University of Cape Town. As a qualified architect he began work in South Africa and Iraq before going into private practice in Greece, being (from 1999) a partner in Sgoutas Architects, a firm that has undertaken numerous projects in Greece, Germany, the Middle East and North Africa.

From 1999 to 2002 Vassilis was President of the International Union of Architects (UIA), in 2019 being elected its Honorary President. Other offices he has held include: board member of the Athens Archaeological Society; jury member of international archaeological competitions and awards in, among other countries, Italy, Holland, Poland, Romania, Russia, the USA and South Africa; a member of the Technical Chamber of Greece Assembly (1984-2006), representing this body on government missions to Egypt, the UAE, China and Armenia; and Co-President of the UNESCO-UIA Validation Council for Architectural Education (2000-2003).

The United Nations “Decade for the Eradication of Poverty” (1997-2007) was the spark that motivated Vassilis to look deeper into the essence of the world’s built environment and, in particular, the involvement of architects in matters relating to poverty.  In this cause he paid in situ visits to slum areas in Brazil, Kenya, India and South Africa.  During Vassilis’ tenure as secretary-general of the UIA, an international competition, “Architecture and the Eradication of Poverty”, was launched in 1997 with the backing of UNESCO. Also during this tenure (in April 2000) a crusade entitled “Housing for the Poor” was launched in the Philippines. And in 2000 to 2002 he gave talks on this subject at six international conferences, in Manila, Mumbai, Almaty (Kazahkstan), Dublin, Durban and Puebla (Mexico).

The need for the architectural profession to take on board – in an environmentally friendly way – issues relating to the building needs of the world’s poor has, indeed, been uppermost in Vassilis’ mind for the past twenty-five years. It is a belief that has inspired a number of lectures and articles; and “Architecture and Exclusion” is one of the principal topics of Vassilis’ book A Journey with the Architects of the World (published by Jovis Verlag, Germany, in 2017, with a Mandarin translation in 2020).

In 2007 the International Union of Architects launched the first triennial “Vassilis Sgoutas Prize for implementing architecture serving the impoverished”.  As its title implies, it rewards architects who have contributed to the betterment of living conditions in areas of the world below the poverty level. It is the only one of the UIA’s five major prizes to have been named after a living architect.

Vassilis Sgoutas is an Honorary Fellow/Member of the Architects Institutes of Australia, Canada, China, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Mexico, Panama, the Philippines, Russia, South Africa and the USA. He is a Foreign Member of the State Russian Academy of Architecture & Construction Sciences, and an Honorary Professor of the Academy of Architecture & Civil Engineering (Kazakhstan).

He has been awarded the medals of UAG (Georgia) and Bene Merentibus of the Association of Polish Architects (Poland); the insignia of the Superior Council of the Architects of Spain; the Presidential Medals of the American Institute of Architects (USA) and FCARM (Mexico); and the medal of the Magnesia Chapter of the Technical Chamber of Greece for his “life-long contribution to architecture”.

Citation prepared by Jeremy Lawrence (1952FH).