1984 Post-War architecture in Greece

A critical introduction
to Greek architecture since the Second World War
by Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre

I. The framework of the project
Architecture in Greece has invited thirty architects to help in the selection of buildings in the view of composing a guide to post World War II architecture in Greece. Each architect has been asked to propose thirty buildings with the constraint to exclude their own. The results of this survey have been used as expert opinions. The responses have also been interesting in so far as they document how a significant group of Greek architects perceive their contemporary architecture. We will not attempt to analyse them here, however.
In its own selection, Architecture in Greece has focused on projects which have contributed to their time by upgrading the architectural quality of the country. Thus, constructions which are important because they express only a temporary force -political, economic, technological or socio-psychological - without at the same time improving the standards of design, have not been included.
Certainly it is difficult to reach a general agreement on the definition of what architectural quality is. As in the case of architectural guides in general, the one in hand follows to a great extent cultural and morphological criteria.
A guide is both the best and the worst introduction to the architecture of a country. The best, because it brings the audience in direct contact with concrete products of architecture without too many theoretical generalisations; and the worst, because it generates a superficial contact only with the fabric of the buildings; it offers an outsider's, a voyeur's point of view. It overlooks most important factors and qualities, such as the conditions under which buildings have been created and the context within which they fit, their cost, economic as well as social and psychological, their technological performance and their social use. A book of this type ignores by nature how this architecture affects people and how it might be used to improve the human conditions and social relations.
With the above limitations in mind, an architectural tour is still a most valuable way to acquiring excellent knowledge of the architecture of a place and of a period.
II. The post-war conditions
The total number of buildings in Greece is estimated 1,730,000 in 1940. Five years later, by the end of the Second World War, the count shows 1,329,000 buildings still erect, a loss of 401,000 units. In buildings the war cost Greece more than one fifth of its pre-war stock. To this, one must add about two thou- sand buildings destroyed during the civil war at the end of 1944. The next wave of civil war brings even more losses in the course of the coming years. This grim reality explains why there are so many newly built structures from the period of the first half of the 1950s when Greek reconstruction starts, some years later than in the rest of Europe.
There are two types of buildings which date from this time, an elementary kind of shabby structures, mainly for shelter and less for industry and commerce, and a number of better off apartment houses and individual residences.
The funds for the reconstruction come primarily through various forms of American aid. In contrast to several European countries, these funds are channelled in most part to residential buildings and directly to the private sector. Thus, there are no significant social housing corporations in Greece and relatively few projects of this kind in contrast with other European countries, such as England, Holland or France.
Greece, like Belgium, heavily influenced by American advisors, opts for a libertarian approach to housing. The building boom develops spontaneously. Urbanisation is excessive and unchecked. It is accompanied neither by a parallel planned expansion of the infrastructure nor by the industrialisation and rationalisation of building components. Basic housing needs remain unfulfilled.
III. New old conformism
Considering the above situation, it is not surprising that in Greece we do not find any of the freshness of approach and humanistic attitudes of the post- war reconstruction projects of other European countries, noting instead a decline in the overall quality of the built environment in spite of a considerable improvement in the quality of individual buildings.
The more conscious designs of this period are carried out by conservative architects educated before the war. Notable examples of this approach are mostly apartments and residences by K. Kitsikis, K. Kapsambelis, E. Vourekas and R. Koutsouris, concentrated in the area of greater Athens. They sup- ply technically successful solutions employing a still thriving handicraft tradition. Functionally these are sound plans. Programmatically they are conformist. Seen as cultural statements, the buildings have no content. They aim at satisfying a small group of entrepreneurs or industrialists and a handful of professionals who succeed not only in surviving the crisis, but also in coming out of it with some profit.
There is something depressing in the dominant attitudes of these groups: the individualistic commercial values, the obsession with making it and, at the same time, the submission to outside domination, social, economic and cultural. This is carried on to the architecture of the period. Details of the past are dismembered, dislocated and deformed. They are cited to generate allusions to prestigious forlorn objects. They can be found in any commercial development around the world. They also express a conscious effort to respond to the peculiarities of Greek urban life earning the name "Balkan barock", to quote painter Yannis Tsarouchis. This all adds up to an image of a world hardly worth it for a new generation to believe in. Still these projects contribute to the coming of age of Greek architecture.
As the economic recovery of Greece proceeds towards the second half of the 1950s, affluence spreads to larger groups mostly of professionals, civil servants and young entrepreneurs. These are industrious groups yearning to heal the wounds of the past history, to overcome the weakness and humiliation of underdevelopment and dependence with which Greece is infected, looking forward to a new creative era and a new sense of community.
IV. Post-war aspirations and tendencies
New architectural ideas are not easy to come by in Greece at this time. Who is to work on them? The generation of the 1920s with few exceptions is too conservative in its background to understand the problems and attempt such a leap. The generation of the 1930s attempts, in the framework of the social, political and cultural radicalism of their time, to create important avant-garde work. But it is tragically interrupted by the events of the end of the decade, the dictatorship of Metaxas and later the wars. The generation of the 1940s, students during this period of upheaval in institutions deeply damaged by the repression of the times, involve themselves in political activities. Persecuted, self-exiled as a result -several of its members such as Candilis, the brothers Xenakis, Provelengios, find their way to the office of Le Corbusier in Paris - they are hardly in a position to carry out such a task.
A decade after the end of the civil war, the institutional innovations in the field of architecture are meagre. The government planning still mostly channels building opportunities into the private residential domain. This leaves meagre chances for the public sector to develop either interesting schemes for tourist facilities or for social housing, educational projects or government offices.
Despite all these difficulties, the new needs and aspirations slowly find their expression in architecture through two movements: the functional-rationalism and the critical-regionalism.
Functional-rationalism tries to create icons which express the aspirations of Greece to overcome the misery of prejudice, privilege and parochialism - shamelessly prevailing in the dominant attitudes of post-war Greece -through objective science and progressive technology. Iconographically, it employs the elements of post and beam structure organised in either a rectilinear prismatic or grid pattern in a manner reminiscent of the concrete buildings of Mies and to some extent of the post-Le Corbusier idiom of neo-brutalism.
Critical-regionalism on the other hand tries to express the ideal of community and independence, censoring the libertarian materialist attitude of the post- war era and the mentality of dependence. By isolating geometrical and topological devices found in the organisation of passages and places of Greek vernacular architecture, it develops the pathway pattern as iconographic theme. Other iconographic devices include colour and material, again cited from the Greek vernacular, as well as the rectilinear prismatic grid pat- tern. The latter draws its regionalist meaning from its use in the nineteenth century Greek neoclassicism, in peasant huts and in urban self-help shacks. As mentioned before, a modernist movement flourishes in Greece for a short period during the first half of the 1930s. Its most notable results are a number of schools commissioned in the framework of the most ambitious and most progressive educational programme in Greece since the independence of the country, conceived by George Papandreou, then Minister of Education. The roots of the functional-rationalism and critical-regionalism of the post-war era are here, although the former is more dominant. The latter is more visible in the literature and painting of the period.
V. Functional-rationalism
Two striking early examples of functional-rationalism are the 27 Academias street office building by Th. Valent is, a modernist of the 1930s, and the house at Sykia by A. Konstantinidis, an architect of the generation of the 1940s. Contrary to the massive collaborative projects of the modernist movement of the 1930s, the first steps of functional-rationalism are taken by a few individuals. Like the generation of the 1930s, however, they also draw on opportunities offered in the public domain, albeit by a less inspired government programme. Although the work of both Valent is and Konstantinidis grows in influence, it is the latter which finally leaves its mark on the period. Konstantinidis designs private residences, some public housing and a significant number of hotels for the National Tourist Organisation where for almost a decade he is given the unique opportunity of having complete freedom to work as he wishes.
His architecture is an intriguing amalgam of several tendencies. He is a functionalist-rationalist, but he is also obsessed by the "mediterraniste" movement, by the new arcadian vision of the simple honest life open to air, sun and sea, where leisure and work, sensual gratification and intellectual abstraction find no division. His mediterranism is linked more with the populist urban culture -a love he shares with the modern regionalists of the time, like Stirling -than with the rural or sea communities. Like the poets, painters, musicians and theatre and movie directors of his time in Greece, he is inspired by the urban working class structure. The rough, simple bricolage architecture of the urban shack so typical of certain neighbourhoods -a modernised descendant of Laugier's cabanne rustique -is very much at the heart of his preoccupations. Although his projects bear functionalist- rationalist characteristics, they can simultaneously be read and interpreted as critical-regionalist constructions.
This is why in his tourist facilities there is none of the slothful silliness and feeble fantasy usually to be found in resort buildings. On the contrary, they stand as shelters for utopian communities of a Spartan character, counter- realities to the world which is spreading at the time in Greece, invitations to a world to come. Because of this critical stand and its skillful architectural expression, the work has a strong impact on its times.
The prism and grid pattern are to be found in a large number of other projects by the end of the 1950s with connotations similar to those contained in the work of Konstantinidis.
Some of the best work along these lines is carried out by Skiadaressis and others in the modest programme of social housing of the period. The building of the National Gallery is designed in the same spirit. Constantinos Doxiadis together with a small group of young and extremely talented designers of the generation of the fifties, Simeon, Ephessios, Kouravelos and Condaratos to name a few, follow the same direction. The best example of this is probably the office of Doxiadis Associates, without question one of the most successful projects of the post-war period.
Although there is a striking resemblance between these buildings and some Konstantinidis projects, it is difficult to say whether this is due to direct influence or simply to the fact that all these works grow out of a similar context.
VI. The rehabifitation of the apartment house
The generation of the 1950s turned their attention to the rehabilitation of the apartment house of its recent "beau monde" past. Once more we find a preoccupation to combine functionalist-rationalist principles with regionalist tend- encies, although less critical and utopian, more tempered than in Konstantinidis.
A new conception of the facade emerges in these apartments. The concrete prism and grid pattern are dominant. At the same time a generous continuous balcony space is projected between the front wall and the street. It is a solution reminiscent of J.L. Sert's Barcelona apartment of the '30s. It is regionalist in the sense that it is well adapted to the local climate -ironically soon to become obsolete because of the worsening of the city noise and pollution levels. In addition, colour now replaces the old shark-skin white chic. The earliest and most significant example of this trend is designed by Valsamakis on Semitelou street. Few contemporary buildings have expressed the sweetness and affability of mediterranean urban life as well as this apartment.
More apartments and residences by Valsamakis follow. The functionalist- rationalist rigour is blended with a lyrical mood and an almost Latin American warmth.

The technical quality of these buildings is exceedingly good, their plan organisation increasingly complex and skillful, but the emotional richness and inventiveness of the first apartment house proves too hard to surpass.
VII. A Greek purism
There is also a more purist, cool functionalist-rationalist side in Valsamakis devoid of regionalist connotations. An excellent early example is the hotel on Amalias avenue and the office building on Kapnikareas square. The latter is still the most elegant curtain wall designed in Greece.
An even more extreme functionalist-rationalist stand is taken by the architect Takis Zenetos. The aesthetics of industrialisation, the beauty of accuracy, monotony, hardness and open form are carried out with rare elegance. The architectonic means employed are exceptionally articulate and controlled. The orthogonal grid, the alignments, the intersecting and bypassing planes reminiscent of De Stijl compose serene icons of optimism. Zenetos is the closest that Greece produced to high-tech modernism.
VIII. Critical-regionalism
Critical-regionalism also has its pure expression. Pikionis, an architect who had participated in the explorations of the modernist generation of the 1930s, although at retirement age in the middle of the 1950s, is the most central representative of the approach.
Like L. Kahn and A. van Eyck, Pikionis refuses to surrender to modernism. Like them, he tries to modify it by bringing in a historicist, nostalgic, but also critical point of view, using history as a means of showing the dehumanisation of contemporary environment. His critique concerns physical qualities, as well as moral and social ones. Several times his work slips into soft reconstructions of the "fermes ornees" in the Greek idiom, but there is also a spirit of dissent, a tragic voice.
The best example of his critical-regionalist approach is the design of the paths on the hills of Philopappos and of the Acropolis in Athens. This is a chain of "places made for occasion", to use the Team X expression. More than a utilitarian road, it is a symbolic object, it signifies a protest against the destruction of community, the splitting of human associations, the dissolution of human contact in our time.
A notable regionalist project, but not of a critical character, is the housing scheme designed by Dekavallas, Condaratos, Bogakos, Sapountzis and Grigoriadis for the earthquake stricken island of Thera.
IX. Recent developments
As in most other cultural activities, the period of the 1967-1974 dictatorship produced very little in the way of architecture. The younger generation had opportunities to build, but the architectural statements were few and mostly indifferent. A happy exception is the work of the Antonakakis. The pathway pat- tern of Pikionis emerges here as a shorthand version of the vast stream of Philopappos hill, as a miniature which preserves the ideals and organising principles, and inserts them into an individual building, a house, an apartment. At the same time, the Antonakakis have preserved in their work the rigour of the grid pattern of Konstantinidis. This is work still in the making and a very promising one.
Critical-regionalism in Greece is in a period of transition. Its success has been several times ambiguous. Its critical dimension has appealed and still appeals to the young, the dissenters, the progressives; its other side, sen- timental nostalgia and irrationality, attracts the conservatives, the prejudi- ced, the chauvinists.
Critical-regionalism has contributed to the maturing of architecture in Greece. It gave a sense of pride and independence. But in its effort to create a sense of belonging, a familiarisation and deinstitutionalisation, one misses a broader picture of the world, a public face, a belief in humanity, outside of traditional borders.
X. New directions?
Two major buildings of the last decade are most intriguing: the National School of Music by Despotopoulos, an architect who was once a student of Hannes Mayer in the Bauhaus, and the Supreme Court by Rizos, an architect of the generation of the 1950s.
Both buildings have nothing to do with the cosiness and lovability of regionalist projects, the paradox and tension of criticisms. They look as if the/mean to represent the missing public face, but they are too remote, too removed to succeed in doing so.
Is their alienating manner a Brechtian comment, in the manner of several of the post-modernists, on the fakeness of the humanists and the reformists? Are these buildings optimistic efforts that try to create a non-oppressive en- vironment in a society which continues to be oppressive? Are they regres- sions to a premodern monumental ism, victims of the antimodernist times? Do they suggest a future trend?
One misses the coherence, the directness and the optimism of the modern- ists of the 1930s. Their unfinished project for a new open architecture is still a real challenge today.
XI. Concluding remarks
Looking back over the work carried out during the post-war period, one is impressed by how much was accomplished in tragic times and with meagre means. The mass of buildings, the changes in the building construction, the introduction of a large number of functionally sophisticated buildings, the emergence of coherent stylistic trends and the international awareness of architecture are indeed achievements of this period.
Greek architecture is slowly finding its place in the international scene. But the key problems which face architecture today still remain unresolved. These are neither iconographic nor formal, and the accumulation of individual successful buildings can hardly amount to a successful overall built environment.
The integration of post-war buildings with their environment is their weakest point. With the exception of the wonderful way Konstantinidis' buildings fit in- to the natural landscape and the masterful Fix factory by Zenetos, the rest fail lamentably to improve their surroundings. Once more, the skill and invention with which the modernists of the '30s handled this problem in Greece is lacking.
The urban infrastructure is lamentably underdeveloped all over the country. The largest number of the inhabitants are deprived of elementary access to environmental amenities. The time for more rational, more coherent, more socially accountable approaches to architecture is here.
With this guide, we have hoped to heighten the public's awareness about architecture, its accomplishments and the tasks that await architects in Greece.