Athens Skyscrapers and Highrises: The Definitive thread - Reloaded!!!

[gm2263]

Hehe...

[Giorgos]

I'm really excited now!

[skylinearth]

Originally Posted by gm2263

Hehe...

I like this smile

[gm2263]

Recently I was found in a department store, namely the exceptionally good Hondos Center on 159 Patission street. Patission street is a straight road [thus the name: Patission (Πατησίων) = "Pate Isia" (Πάτε ίσια) = "go straight" ].

Nevertheless this road begins from the very centre of Athens and goes straight to the "midwest" disticts of the city. So, a few days ago (before the skies last turned cloudy ) I went there to have a coffee on the 7th floor with my camera. This was a good and a bad idea.

Good because it offers a very good view of the "ugly" sides of the city, the ones we try to hide, and that were built the mid1950s to the mid 1970s.

Bad because the sun is difficult to harness this time of the year, especially in the afternoon. Add to the fact that the white of the Athenian buildings is notorious for ruining the dreams of any photographer about harnessing the contrast between it and the other colours as well as the shades in a pictures(unless it shot with a blue sky background) and you have a recipe for a photographic disaster.

Well anyway, I went on despite the odds conspiring against me I went on. Below you have the result...


-Looking towards the back streets of Patission street. In the far right we can see amidst a sea of concrete the twin 18-storey "Phantom" residentials in Ahios Nikolaos, close to Acharnon Street (they are so far awat from ANY major arterial road that if you don't know where exactly they are, chances are you'll never find them).




-Detail zooming on the twins




-Looking towards Kypseli district




-Detail depicting a cluster of old residentials on the top of a hill. I suspect this may be the "Ano Kypseli" area. Impressive in its ugliness, this pic depicts the utter density of inner-city Athens districts.




I left the best for the last part. Unfortunately, I was facing the afternoon sun and thus. excuse my bad photography here:

-Landscape orientation picture depicting the view from the department store towards the Acropolis, with the straight Patission street. The "tall" building in the picture is the 15-storey Greek Telecom Building on Tritis Septemvriou street. Quite interesting view.




-Portrait orientation picture frame, same view:




And this is the last pic depicting a close - up of the ensemble of the Acropolis and the OTE building. By looking closer at this view, we may find a quite reasonable excuse about why the view of the Acropolis would be spoiled by the presence of tall buildings in its immediate vicinity and mind you, this building was completed in the mid 1960s so at the time, its design seemed... well... OK... .



Overall, a good case study to reflect on, although the new skyscrapers will be built in such locations so as to not obstruct so offensively the view of the "Holy Rock".

Although in my view, building so ugly buildings overall at the foot of such a wonder of architecture is a sacrilege, regardless of height.

And one last note: Merry Christmas, and the best season's greetings to everybody. Please do not troll this thread with the Athenian ugliness, all cities backyards are ugly, OK?

[gm2263]

CRITICAL UPDATE, 31 JANUARY 2007

Please note:

What follows in this post comes as a complement to the original thread from last June (2006) in SSC (also available here) regarding the proposal for a threefold multi-scraper in Athens called West Athens Towers by the architect Manolis Anastasakis.

Introduction



Last fall, following a meeting with the architect himself, I had the opportunity to collect some additional material and pictures to the ones I already presented here, plus some additional information that may to the interest of any skyscraper fan in Greece. These materials shed new light on the project whose significance for Greece is monumental, since this is the first proposal (followed by the equally significant one for Thessaloniki by a group of young architects as part of their final year dissertation at the University of Thessaloniki.


1. The concept

The proposal for the WAT came as an entry to an architectural competition (the eVolo 06 Skyscraper International Competition - 2006) and has been received with mixed feelings by the Greek community, at least this is what I could decipher from what was "in the air". Of course, the majority was rather positive and a significant number of people exhaled "at last" (Επιτέλους), whilst others re-iterated their usual objections relating to the "incompatibility" of the Athenian landscape with the construction of such structures.

The architect himself declared his will to take on the dominant ideologies that have deprived the Athens Metro area, now with a population rising to some 4.5 million inhabitants, of a world-class skyline, which is the "trademark" of every city wishing to assume a regional and/ or an international metropolitan status.

In order for the project to gain a symbolic character as the first real skyscraper in Athens after more than thirty years, the project was positioned in an area that possesses a semantic yet bipolar significance: The run-down part of the city, many times mentioned as "the backyard of Athens", also known as "Elaionas" (Ελαιώνας) or "the Olive Grove".

This 10,000sq km area now mostly occupied by old factories, small manufacturing firms, and a number of other activities been targeted to host the aspirations of city officials as well as the Athenians, and carry a large part of the tremendous load of the intended revitalization of the Athens greater area, along with the Hellenikon Airport plot (another 6,000 sq km). Many serious projects have already announced for this area, of which, the biggest is the 45,000-seat Panathinaikos FC stadium.

On the other hand, the Olive Grove (Elaionas) area, is one of the most significant in terms of the history of the city (and used to be a real olive grove until Athens expanded uncontrollably and eventually covered the terrain with all sorts of buildings, mostly designed for small industrial uses. To this end, the intended revitalization also constitutes an excellent opportunity not only to rebuild the area, but also, to uncover the concrete-coated surfaces and reveal their old views as part a new landscaping programme which would restore historic memory and allow the city to re-establish rapport with its glorious past.

A past where which, according to the myth Poseidon and Athena competed in order to determine which one would become protector and guardian God to the city. At the climax of the competition, Athena touched the ground with its spear and an olive tree sprung from the ground. Since then, the olive tree is considered sacred and is protected and worshipped not only in Athens but also all over Greece.

-Image of olive tree leaves from the tree in my garden. Picture taken from my room.




2. Transformation

It was with the above in mind that the main concept of the proposed tower was established to serve both as an icon and an emblem. The iconic value would come with the liasing of the city with its past, and in order this would be accomplished with the building functioning as an emblem of this connection.

Early visualisations include the following two pictures where I kept the architect's comments as they were printed on paper:

In the first, the vision relates to three olive leaves springing out of the ground using as a canvas a painting depicting the olive grove in 1840, shortly Athens became the capital of the then new Greek state. In the second, we see the unit of the concept, the leaf itself in an upright position, ready to metamorphose from its original natural shape to a meta-form that will be used as the shell for expanding the architect's vision.





In the next image we see a series of drawings depicting the transformation of one of the three olive leafs into a meta-structural shape, a shell container unit which will incubate and finally deliver the end product of the transformation.




Also, to the right of the image we see some typical floor plans from the 10th floor up to the roof of the building in order to get an idea of the vertical aspects of various of the multi-skyscraper's floors.

What follows is a sketch of the full elevation of the building, side view:




3. The building

At this point I would like to make a correction here: In the original thread about this complex, I mentioned two towers measuring 200 and 150m in height respectively. After having met with Mr Anastasakis and according to the information given to me, the complex includes three towers interconnected with skybridges whose height data are as follows:

Tower A: Structural height, 200m, Highest accessible/habitable point at 165m (where the observatory is)

Tower B: Structural Height, 160m, Highest accessible/ habitable point at 125m

Tower C: Structural Height, 130m, Highhest accessible/ habitable point at 100m


The final view which is already seen in these forums, depicting the tower from a perspective view some 50m above the ground. Only the previous ones posted above were scanned from the Kathimerini Newsparer. This one is straight from the source




The next is a composition of two photos where I left the original legends. In the large photo we see a night vision of the upper floors of the complex whilst in the smaller one, an idea about how the building would visually interact with the Acropolis as seen from an elevated standpoint to the east of the Acropolis.



The last picture may be considered by many as a hubris, then I stare at it at awe: It is a night vision depicting the visually dialectic relation of the Acropolis with the tall complex. 2,500 years after the "Sacred Rock" started emanating its infinite wisdom, it now joins forces with a new symbol of urban regeneration, a new emblematic figure of continuity which transcends the ancient wisdom into the 21st century.




I wish to God that this project were realized. It is so Athenian and yet so modern in its conception.

Megapolisomancy. Urban magic. Transformation.