Letter from Athens - Brief Article

Architectural Review, The, June, 2001 by Elias Constantopoulos

Athens is in turmoil as the deadlines for the 2004 Olympic Games approach. Massive public projects are to be built, but the government has been indifferent to architecture built since Classical times. Yet there is a new breeze of hope.

Something could be moving in Athens after a long period of stagnation. Architectural production of high quality has over the years been the main, if not the sole prerogative of the private, residential sector. Now a number of great public projects are in the offing, albeit with questionable futures, chiefly because of the way architecture is generally treated (read: ignored) in Greece. Postwar years have only a handful of interesting public buildings to show, most of them constructed in the '60s and '70s: the Fix Brewery Plant by T. Zenetos (which has been badly cut up and partly demolished over recent years, and is waiting to be resurructed and baptised as the first Museum of Modern Art in Athens), the American Embassy by Gropius, the old Athens Airport by Saarinen, the National Gallery by D. Fatouros & P. Mylonas, the Conservatoire by J. Despotopoulos, and more recently the ambivalent Music Hall by a host of architects, the Law Courts by I. Rizos and perhaps the best of them all, the Passenger Terminal in P iraeus by Y. Liapis & E. Skroumbelos, the Open Air Theatre on Lycabettus by T. Zenetos and the Public Power Corporation Building by C. Crantonellis. A short list with few exceptional buildings for the capital city of Greece indeed.

The projects which are today either in the design or the construction stage in Athens (due most of them in 2004) include public buildings as well as large-scale urban interventions, such as the Unification of the Archeological Sites and the redesign of central public squares, the new Acropolis museum and the Museum of Modern Art, new Olympic Games facilities, the new Metro line and the International Airport. Does this mean that we will see anything approaching the Olympic and urban projects of Barcelona, or the 'Grands Projets' of Paris, or the urban regeneration of London and Berlin? Optimists will nod their heads affirmatively, pessimists (and there are many of them, based justifiably on negative past experience) will think it all bleak. To move towards an improved quality of life in future Athens, it is certainly time to take stock, to accept what is or can be positive and what is not.

Projects for the 2004 Olympics, such as the Olympic village and the sports stadiums, will present Athens with a new face by the 'golden' year 2004 - but the point is under what vision for the city? Will Athens have improved in terms of use and appearance, or not? Results of the Olympic Village competition have not been made public as promised. Some of the sports facilities for the Games may be located in the environmentally protected Phaliron area and some in the old airport. Their use after the Olympics should be seriously considered, though design proposals refer to temporary structures that will be removed afterwards. We are also currently witnessing the re-enactment of the battle of Marathon, this time though, not between Persians and Greeks but between the Greeks ourselves (they say that history can only be repeated as a farce). On one side there are ecologists, archaeologists et al, who consider that construction of rowing facilities in Marathon will cause environmental havoc and that they will infring e upon the historic battle site. On the other side are the ministry and its advisors, who consider the development aesthetically beneficial to the whole district.

The Unification of the Archeological Sites is planned throughout the centre of Athens, conceived as a landscaped pedestrian area, combining cultural sightseeing with leisure walks. Next to that, after recent competitions, the major squares of Athens are up for a facelift - notably the three central ones in Synragma, Omonia and Monastiraki.

The long-awaited Acropolis Museum, that is to house the Parthenon marbles, has entered a new phase, i.e. a fourth international competition, with many notable Greek architects as well as non-Greek luminaries among them, such as Arata Isozaki, Daniel Libeskind, and Ahrends Burton & Koralek. Let us hope that this will not be a fruitless effort like the previous ones (as the art museum by I. M. Pei seems to have got stuck). However, the site chosen for it is rather restricted in scope, is very close to the glorious rock, and threatens to bring even more traffic to the already badly congested centre of Athens.

Lack of identity

This is a time when the present Greek government is enjoying a moment of success. Two long awaited and very important public works have been presented to the public, the new underground Metro line and the new international airport in Spata.

Both much-needed amenities are now to every Athenian's surprise in operation. The airport was actually inaugurated on 28 March, to the sounds of Beethoven's music, on the date that the government had announced, a rather rare keeping to schedule in Greek public projects. But there are shortcomings which leave the citizens of Athens with a bitter sense of incompleteness.