a.
The buildings for commercial use or government use:
These were built for primarily office or other commercial public use including public administration, hotels, health units, etc. They were normally located close to major arterial roads. Most of them have cement as their façade materials except for the Athens Tower the Atrina centre tower, the national Bank of Greece branch of Paliaon Psychikon and the Piraeus Trade centre, whose facades are clad with glass on all sides. Some examples of the these buildings can be seen below, all characteristic of the architectural styles dominant in the middle 1970's.
Besides the Athens tower of which we saw many pictures previously, there were a number of buildings completed for government use, like the
Ministry of Public Order and the 401-421 military hospitals in Messogeion Avenue as seen in the following picture from the new bridge made by S. Calatrava as seen from the follwing pictures:
-Now, feast your eyes with this UNIQUE picture taken from a VERY high location in mount hymettus depicting Katehaki Avenue and the Ministry of Public order as well as military hospitals from some 900m above the ground:
Also, of particular importance are the head offices of the
Greek Telecom Ogranisation (OTE) which, along with the Atrina Centre were the only tall buildings completed in Maroussi before stricter laws were imposed.
-The Greek Telecom Head Offices building with the new suburban rail station in the middle of the junction of the Attica Road- Kifissias Avenue.
Also, among others, one should not forget the
Hygeia Hospital and the
Athens Police Headquarters, which are well known structures in Alexandras and Kifissias Avenues respectively.
The above mentioned few highrises were built with building permits taken from the years of the military junta and many were completed after the military fell from power. They are located –in their majority- in big avenues and almost all Athenians know them.
However, there is another bunch of highrises that are difficult to chart and/ or observed and are probably not known that much. They have not been built by prominent architects and since they are not accommodating any public functions or services, they are difficult to spot, especially when they do not stand out in prominent locations but are lost deeply into inner city neighbourhoods or the Athenian suburbia. Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in the web and probably in any form, be it printed or electronic, I present you with:
b.
The Lost Residentials.
The main paradox with Athens highrises is that many of them are not corporate glass towers built by big construction companies in order to show off or impose his capitalist ideal seen in ALL cities with a decent skyline. , or simply for Actually, as mentioned above, in contrast to what one might expect, a large number of these high-rises are residentials located in the periphery of the city, away from main avenues or other arterial roads. Surprisingly, we are talking about a couple of dozens of these babies, maybe more. Most of them are between 10-17 or 18 storeys tall. Their contractors are not known and are not mentioned anywhere, after all, the Hellenic architectural community would like to see those buildings probably demolished, so don't expect any mention. It for this reason that I call them "lost", since most of them are literally "hidden" located, as mentioned above, deeply inside residential districts, away from the centre of the city or the places of tourist or business interest,
as if their builders literally wanted to hide them from the public eye. So, the only way to spot them was from… above, and in the absence of a private helicopter
, I resolved to the next best alternative, that is, climbing to the top of hills or to elevated locations. The following pictures are the product of such expeditions… Click on links to explore further:
-
Residentials in Palaio Psychiko seen from the mount Hymettus.
-Various residentials (
Chalandri tower,
Efterpi Tower,
Cholargos Ventouri Street Tower ) seen from the neighbourhood of the Athens Olympic Complex (OAKA)
Efterpi Tower and
Erato Tower in Cholargos (800m from my place) from Lycabettus Hill (VERY distant view but I like it)
Same two towers in the foreground with the Atrina Centre and the Greek Telecom Head Offices building in the background as seen from the slope of mount Hymettus
-"Lost"
Residential Tower in Nea Ionia, somewhere in Athenian suburbia:
-
Residential Twins in Aghios Nicolaos Acharnon 
Actually the last picture is from a very densely populated area from inner city Athens, between the streets of Acharnon, Patission as well as Galatsiou Avenue. There are actually two pairs of twins in Athens. This is the first pair, and we will visit the second in a moment. In a 1km radius you may also find the
Aghias Lavras Street Tower,
and the Tower in Kato Patissia.
And, for those that may not know, even the lowrise and luxury suburb of Kifissia has its own highrise block, as seen from Kifissias Avenue:
The above building as well as the
"Dhifros" Apartment Complex that we will examine below, were built by Alexandros Tombazis in the mid-70's when the architect was experimenting with the patterns adopted by the Japanese "School of Metabolists" of the late Tadao Ado, thus the polymorph design of the buildings.
Today, these buildings, look either like isolated islands lost in a sea of concrete (like the ones in Ahios Nikolaos Acharnon or Kato Patissia) or hidden in exotic streets in the suburbs (Chalandri, Cholargos, or even the high-class Kifissia!!!) perhaps giving us, according to some, an indication of how bad things might have turned in the law on "free construction" had not been abolished in 1978 and the already packed urban fabric of Athens had accommodated large numbers of these "vertical" protrusions" which, according to the views of many would have resulted in Athens looking like a small, version of Hong Kong or Sao Paulo.
According to others, when used with careful planning, residential highrises may help saving valuable space both in urban as well as suburban areas, especially when combined with greenery. Well, allow me to surprise you by saying that regardless of my passion about tall buildings, I really don't like them that much for residential use. I mean, I believe that the idea of a traditional lowrise neighbourhood like the one I was raised in is the best for raising kids and having a family. On the contrary, highrises are perfect for bachelors. I mean, what could be a better setting for luring in your love interest
and creating (for the boys here) a romantic atmosphere with the unbeatable view of the city some 20 (or 30… ) storeys above the ground.
In any case, regardless of the bad or good critiques that they may have received regarding their ugly or indifferent designs, these buildings still constitute a significant part of this city's highrise construction, they are inhabited by people who enjoy the view from there, are not afraid of the earthquakes and most of all, are the best representatives of another time when contactors were more daring regardless of the awkwardness that some of these earlier designs may have had back then…
c. The Athenian Tower Blocks (and Commieblocks!!!)
A special category of the above-mentioned residential buildings, probably constituting a sub-category of (b) are the highrises built in an organised fashion on a few of locations in the city in order to constitute tower blocks.
Specifically, during the years of the military junta, there have been a couple of attempts to provide organise housing both from the private sector as well as the government. Although (like most of this type of mass-produced buildings) they are not the best artefacts of architectural design, still, they exist, idle representatives of an era that came and went without leaving its permanent mark on anything.
-Tower Block in Messogeion Avenue. This block includes according to the author's humple opinion the only real twin towers in Greece, built some 4 years apart. It is located o Messogeion Avenue, on the borders of Cholargos and Neon Psychikon Suburbs. Here is a picture of the buildings of the block taken with a strong zoom lens from Lycabettus Hill, some 10km to the south of the complex.
Here, shown in a rare pic from mount Hymettus with the installations of the main Athens Olympic complex in the smoggy background:
Of particular interest are the 18 and 16-storey twin towers right on Messogeion Avenue (some 1.5 km from where I live
)
Another addition to the complex is also a
15-storey block built by the teachers association of Greece in 1974, next to the twins.
-The next complex is of some importance, primarily due to the existence of the
"Dhifros" Apartment Complex which, as explained earlier, it constitutes an attempr to incorporate the teachings of the Japanese "School of Metabolists" into the Greek reality. This building, along with the rest of the buildings of this comples is in the area of Aghia varvara (Santa Barbara) in Paliaon Psychikon.
-Picture of the complex in Cholargos and Psychikon as seen from the mount Hymettus
-Japanese metabolism and its impact in suburban Athens skyline as seen from the mount Hymettus
-Organised mid-rise housing in Peristeri:
The Athenian Commieblock!!!
This is a
complex of mid- to low-rise residentials located around the church of Aghios Antonios (St Antony's) in Peristeri, above the metro station of "Aghios Antonios".
Interesting sample of mid-70's mass housing, probably built by the Workers' housing organisation but without any follow-up.
Pictures, depicting the church as well as the Ethnarchou makariou Avenue
To sum up, as mentioned before, the completion of the Atrina Centre in 1980 might have constituted the beginning of a new era of tower construction where most of the obvious mistakes (including the above
) would have been eliminated and-most important – the new edifices would serve as corporate head offices, bearing in them the latest in design and building technology, instead of becoming the characteristic of anonymous and mediocre buildings on remote locations where nobody would take any notice (and being an experienced building "spotter", I can tell you that with regards of some of these buildings, one needs to be very patient in locating them… )
…and, that was the time when builders were not afraid to call their creations "skyscrapers" as seen in the following advertisement of Pafilis constructions in the "Architecture in Greece" (Αρχιτεκτονικά θέματα ) review:
So, there was the time for a change for the better…a change that never came…