Academy of Athens

Bureau of Architectural Research

BALKAN CAPITALS
FROM THE 19th TO THE 21st CENTURY

URBAN PLANNING AND THE MODERN

ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE

Preparatory Meeting for the Inter-Balkan Congress

Propylaea Hall, University of Athens
30 Panepistimiou St, Athens, 12.12.2005

PROCEEDINGS

ATHENS 2006
General Editor
Helen Fessas-Emmanouil

Assisted by
Manos Mikelakis

Text Editing
Judy Giannakopoulou

Translation into Greek

Manos Mikelakis

Transcription
Katerina Mandroni

Artistic Direction / D.T.P

Manos Mikelakis
Spyros Kordellas

Members of the Organising Committee

President: George P. Lavvas
Vice President: Nikolaos Th. Cholevas
Secretary: Helen Fessas-Emmanouil
Treasurer: Εmmanuel V. Μarmaras
Member: Μiloš R. Perović

Members of the Scientific Commitee

Anca Bratuleanu, Romania; Helen Fessas-Emmanouil, Greece;
Ayşe Nur Ökten, Turkey; Miloš Perović, Serbia;
Georges Prevelakis, France; Violette Rey, European Union.
Ljubinka Stoilova, Bulgaria.

Secretariat
Dr. Marina Karavasili
Katerina Mandroni
Roula Tsitsopoulou

Production
Academy of Athens, Bureau of Architectural Research

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In memory of Academician George P. Lavvas
(1935-2006)

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4
 CONTENTS
George P. Lavvas, Introductory Speech 7
Nikolaos Th. Cholevas, Greetings 11
Vassilis Sgoutas, Greetings 13
& Introduction: Random points raised 15
Georges Prevelakis & Violette Rey, “Empire, Nationalism and the Cold
War. The Balkan Urban Iconographies” 19
Anca Bratuleanu, “Bucharest in the 19th and 20th centuries. The evolution
of the urban scale” 31
Ljubinka Stoilova, “Sofia in two centuries. Part A” 37
Petar Iokimov, “Sofia in two centuries. Part B” 43
Miloš R. Perović & Dragana Ćorović, “Urban development in Belgrade:
Plans and Reality” 51
Aleksandar Ignjatović, “Constructing the capital of Yugoslavism: The
Identity of Belgrade Architecture, 1904-1941” 57
Ayşe Nur Ökten, “Urban planning in the course of modernisation and
globalization in Istanbul: An overview” 63
Emmanuel Marmaras, “The town planning of Athens during the 19th and
early 20th century: A general outline” 75
Helen Fessas-Emmanouil, “The role and work of architects in Athens in
the second half of the 20th century: A brief outline” 89

Round Table Discussion 103

Shaping the Balkan Capitals (Proposal by M. R. Perović) 113

Project Titles 119

Highlights of Balkan Architecture and Urban Planning (Proposal by H.
Fessas-Emmanouil) 120
Abstracts in English and Greek 121
Participants 145
Illustrations 177

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Preface

This publication contains the texts of the introductory speeches and

presentations and a summary of the Round Table discussion at the Athens
Meeting of the Project “Balkan Capitals from the 19th to the 21st Century: Urban
Planning and the Modern Architectural Heritage” (Propylaea Hall, University of
Athens, 12. 12. 2005).

The edited texts are published in English with abstracts in Greek.

We should like to express our gratitude to all those who contributed to the
success of this Meeting.

The Organising Committee

7
Introductory Speech
by George P. Lavvas

BALKAN CAPITALS FROM THE 19th TO THE 21st CENTURY.

URBAN PLANNING AND THE MODERN ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE

Dear colleagues and friends,

On behalf of Prof. E. Roukounas, President of the Academy of Athens, and of the
“Bureau of Architectural Research”, I would like to welcome you all to this
splendid Propylaea Hall in the University of Athens. First and foremost, I would
like to thank Prof. G. Babiniotis, Rector of this University, for the hospitality
provided here, and secondly, I would like to express my gratitude to the Ministry
of Culture for its financial support for this Preparatory Meeting, announcing the
Inter-Balkan Congress “Balkan Capitals from the 19th to the 21st century. Urban
Planning and the Modern Architectural Heritage”.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As we all know, one of Europe’s most significant architectural congresses took
place here in Athens in 1933, the famous fourth CIAM Congress, which drew
attention to the emerging problems of modern cities. At this Congress, numerous
hopes and expectations were expressed by great masters of modern architecture
and urban planning, such as Le Corbusier, van Eesteren, Alvar Aalto, Siegfried
Giedion and others. The result of this famous Congress was The Athens Charter,
a text that determined the development and evolution of the cities all over the
world during the last century. CIAM members from the Balkan countries also took
part in this Congress in Athens. Under the strong personality of the architect and
urban-planner Jan Despotopoulos, new bonds of friendship and cooperation
were developed between the colleagues of these neighboring countries.

I was pleasantly surprised, many years ago, when I was working in the Siegfried

8
Giedion Archive at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, to
discover in the correspondence between Despotopoulos and Giedion, that in
1937 a minor CIAM Congress between the Balkan countries had taken place in
Greece, at which the specific problems of Balkan capital cities were discussed by
specialists. These historical reminiscences highlight the quintessence of our
Meeting today: some sixty years later another Congress will be held with Balkan
colleagues attending. These sixty years have been marked by many crucial
events and upheavals. Wars, catastrophes, Iron-curtain experiences,
tremendous social changes and civil wars all took place in our neighborhood,
hindering communication and cooperation between us. For several decades after
the Second World War, we hardly knew anything about countries very close to
Greece; moreover, their architecture was something like a terra incognita. In
recent years, cultural bonds and friendships between architects and urban
planners have been re-established, which have made our Meeting possible
today.

As a matter of fact, this Meeting is the achievement of our colleagues Nikos

Cholevas, Miloš Perović and Mrs. Helen Fessas-Emmanouil, who initiated the
cooperation between specialists from all countries in South-Eastern Europe, in
order to study, promote and protect the Balkan heritage in architecture and urban
planning, particularly that of the last two centuries. We all agree that the heritage
of this period is in greater danger than that of the ancient or medieval period,
because of the demolition and the extensive alteration of their structures from the
inside out. Greek architects admit that future historians will refer to the last two
centuries as the “dark age” of architecture, since the authentic architectural
creations are rapidly disappearing, their foundations included, leaving no sign of
their presence.

As indicated on the program, some Balkan countries are not present today at our
Preparatory Meeting. The reason is the limited financial support, which came
unexpectedly two weeks ago, under a strict condition: if we don’t achieve our aim

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by the end the year, the amount of money offered will be lost. Lacking time to
communicate and cooperate with colleagues from all Balkan capitals, the
Organizing Committee has held this Preliminary Meeting in order to examine the
outline of the Project, which in future will include specialists from as many Balkan
countries as possible.

Now, a few words about the intentions and the goals of this Preparatory Meeting:
I think that there should be three steps in our common effort as regards
architecture and urban planning:

First, research and study of the situation in the capital cities of the Balkan
countries, including ex-capitals or historical cities of special significance. A
common framework of guidelines and criteria should be worked out, if we intend
to produce plans, texts and other forms of representation in a similar way, which
will lead to comparative studies and conclusions.

Promotion of the work of eminent architects and urban planners of the Balkan
Peninsula through exhibitions, publications and cd-rom recordings. This is a
desideratum well known not only in the international literature but also in our
smaller Balkan world. We are better acquainted with what has been happening in
Japan or Australia than with what is going on in Greece, Romania or Turkey. If
we consider the language as an obstacle, then we should follow the modus
applied in the European Union: English or French should be the languages of our
common work.

Protection of this remarkable cultural heritage, which is in peril today. For earlier
cultural periods a consistent code of protection, based on laws and specialized
services, is already in place. In recent years, in certain countries, architects and
urban planners appealed to the state and to international committees for the
protection of modern architectural monuments. What is sad is the delayed
reaction of the scientific community, because an important part of this heritage

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has already vanished. Thus, the necessity of an inventory and documentation of
the modern architectural heritage should be a top priority, since it will help the
public services to safeguard what is still intact in our cities. In my opinion, one of
the best and the most progressive chapters in The Athens Charter in 1933 was
the one dedicated to the problems of the old, traditional parts of historical cities,
their function and their fate in the future.
***
This is the outline of our work today. During the Round Table discussion this
afternoon, we will have a chance to exchange ideas, submit proposals and
define a common framework for our cooperation.

Once again, I would like to thank all of you, speakers and other colleagues, for
being here. And now, I would like to call upon the internationally known former
President of the International Union of Architects (UIA), Mr. Vassilis Sgoutas to
address our Meeting.

But first, Professor Nikos Cholevas of the Technical University of Athens, one of
the few to write about the history of modern architecture in the Balkans, will say a
few words.

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Greetings
by Nikolaos Th. Cholevas

The Balkan Peninsula, crossroads of different civilisations and subtle conveyor of

artistic activities, constitutes a labyrinthine but fascinating object of architectural
research.

There are two significant poles which unify the Balkans culturally and historically:
the common past experience of occupation by the Ottoman Empire shared by
some parts of the peninsula, but above all, the Christian Orthodox faith and
tradition shared by an overwhelming proportion of the population, with Byzantine
and Post-Byzantine culture as a point of reference to historical prototypes. In this
context, traditional architecture in the Balkans acquires a specific meaning as the
expression of architectural activity in its particular geographic territory as well as
a reference to historical memory. Traditional architecture, regarded as
architecture without architects, has been a weighty heritage exerting a profound
influence on artistic creativity in all Balkan countries in modern times.

What is equally important for the evolution of modern architecture in the Balkans
is the influence of Central European models. Through the intervention of the
Great Powers which aimed to create spheres of political influence in these newly
constituted nations, ready-made prototypes of taste were introduced into their art
and architecture. For example, the École des Beaux Arts had close relations with
Romania and Greece, while the Wagner School was more influential in Bulgaria
and the former Yugoslavia. On the other hand, the lack of native schools of
architecture in these countries, favoured the specific trends imported from the
major European capitals. The search by some Balkan architects for a native
tradition constituted the cornerstone of their effort which, as a starting point, was
intended both to promote the need for a new contemporary architecture and to
express the meaning of Byzantium as a common architectural presence.

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“Architecture in the Balkans between the wars” was the field of a comparative
study in my book of the same title, in which an attempt was made to reveal the
astonishing dynamism of architectural production in Albania, Bulgaria, the
geographic territory of former Yugoslavia, Romania and Greece. My participation
in this Preparatory Meeting for the Inter-Balkan Congress “Balkan Capitals from
the 19th century to the 21st century: Urban Planning and the Modern Architectural
Heritage” will provide an opportunity to exchange knowledge and ideas among
friends and colleagues from other Balkan countries.

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Greetings
by Vassilis Sgoutas

Greetings to all on behalf of the UIA.

It is good to be here among eminent colleagues and friends representing

countries with a common history and common aspirations for the future.

The UIA greatly welcomes this initiative of holding an inter-Balkan Congress on

the capital cities of the Balkan countries. We also welcome it for a specific
reason. During the past three years we have focused on cities; yet the notion of
capital cities was not specifically highlighted. The Congress being planned will
help us to refocus.

We all know that cities, mega-cities and capital cities have been receiving all
sorts of criticism. Who can forget the extraordinary remark by Paul Virilio, the
well-known architect and intellectual, who said that “cities are the failure of our
times, let us not repeat the mistake”.

No, we believe in cities and, in particular, we acknowledge the importance of

capital cities in providing the lead for other cities. The architecture and town
planning of a capital city is the country’s mirror seen by the outside world.

The fact that the UIA is an international organization spanning five continents and
more than 100 countries, gives us the advantage of a comparative viewpoint, but
some things are nevertheless particular to certain regions.

There is of course the fact that, we are all in much the same boat worldwide, with
the bulldozer of globalization hanging over our heads. It has already done, and
continues to do, great damage, and has the potential to wreak havoc on the
cultural heritage that we treasure.

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Yet the Balkan region, not least because of its history and urban planning
realities, has the power to resist this incursion more than other regions of the
world. This fact is very important because a unifying thread transcends the final
urban planning product, most noticeably in our capital cities. Studying and
analyzing the development of these capital cities back to the 19th century will
undoubtedly reinforce our common heritage and hence our common bonds.

However, this study of the past can be deemed meaningful only if its result is
oriented towards the future. Otherwise we will just be navel-gazing and rehashing
old ideas. What we need to prove is that we have a past with a future.

All this makes the prospect of what we are about to deliberate particularly
exciting and challenging. Our task will, I feel certain, be greatly helped by the fact
that the organizers have opted to hold this preparatory meeting.

So often, major international congresses are prepared directly by national

organizing committees helped by other countries through correspondence and
other communication means. This Congress will not be quite the same. Because
the plurality that was evident right from the start will undoubtedly be reflected in
the Congress itself. So everything augurs well for its success. You can be certain
that the UIA will support it and that it will disseminate the thoughts expressed and
the conclusions reached. You can also be assured of my personal commitment.

Finally, on behalf of the UIA, I would like to congratulate the organizers on this
initiative and to wish you all a very successful meeting.

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Introduction: Random points raised
by Vassilis Sgoutas

1. Capital cities
Capital cities usually ‘grow’ into their role. There are, however, a number of
special cases, e.g.
- Cities that were planned to be capitals (e.g. Brasilia, Canberra).
- Cities that became capitals again (Berlin).
- Cities that are no longer capitals (Istanbul).
In most languages the word for capital has as its origin in the notion of ‘head’
or seat of government and administration e.g. raisima (Arabic), bashkent
(Turkish – from bashkan = head), stoilitsa (Bulgarian – from ‘where the throne
lies’), glavnigrad (Serb – from glava = head).
In Greek, however, the notion of capital (protevousa or first in importance)
encompasses a wider range of activities i.e., cultural and economic
supremacy, in addition to its administrative function.

2. A few words about the Balkans

- Common heritage.
- Common geographical characteristics.
- Common foreign influences (Turkey / West).
- Fluctuating borders.
- More or less parallel development.
(Compare, for example, China and Japan, and the totally different
chronological periods in which the impact of the automobile was felt in
these countries).

3. The social segregation of space

- The social segregation of space is a fact.
- The social desegregation of space is an objective.
- The ethics of space.

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Space is both political and social. It is the politics of space that determine the
social evolution of space.

4. Land
- Who owns it.
- Who has the right to own it.
- To what extent have the constraints of land ownership affected the
development of capital cities.
- To what extent have the constraints of land ownership affected the planning
of capital cities.
- Land policies of the future.

5. Culture and Heritage

- The architectural soul of a country can never be destroyed or bought.
- It is precisely heritage and culture that enable a nation to survive even the
loss of political and economic independence.
- Architects are, more than any other collective body, best equipped to
ensure the continuum of culture.

6. Preservation and Development

- Francis Fukuyama: “It would be a negative assessment of our age if we
were to be remembered principally as the ‘curators of the museum of
history”.
- We cannot expect to preserve everything. We have to be the arbiters of
what to preserve and what to demolish.
- A look at the past
Paris – Haussmann: The destruction of the mediaeval city.
New York in the early 19th century: Probably one of the greatest ecological
disasters of its time, i.e. the leveling of verdant hills and the superimposition of a
rectangular grid
- When do we judge a major urban planning intervention? Before or after the

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 event?
- How will the future judge our interventions? Based on our criteria or on
quite different criteria?
- The preservation of a few monuments can never atone for cities that have
no architectural character, no pulse and no memory.

7. Planning
- The planning of capital cities is not an exercise in aesthetics, nor is it an
exercise in heritage preservation, it is about the continuity of life.
- Critical parameter for capital cities : The in-built potential for ‘sane’
development.

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Empire, Nationalism and the Cold War.
The Balkan Urban Iconographies
by Georges Prevelakis & Violette Rey

Introduction

As memory is expressed in the architectural and urban landscapes, collective

amnesia can also be a major explanatory factor in Cultural Geography. Amnesia
can lead to innovation, when the deleted memory of places is replaced by
invented memories; when, however, the vacuum of memory cannot be filled in
rapidly and efficiently, it may lead to confusion and chaos.

The Balkan states and Turkey constitute an excellent ground to study the
relationship between the urban landscape and the collective management of
memory. During the 19th and the 20th centuries, the Balkan Peninsula and
Anatolia alike underwent tremendous changes. These changes are perceived
essentially as political events and economic developments, while their cultural
and spatial dimensions are often forgotten. Although a large part of this
conscious and subconscious collective amnesia can be explained by guilt or by
the need to overcome the traumas of ethnic cleansing, important ideological
reasons also led post-Ottoman societies to forget their past. In fact, the creation
of Nations and States out of Ottoman society was legitimized by presenting this
profound transformation as a return to a previous situation, one that had existed
before the Ottoman conquest, albeit in embryonic form. Thus, rather than the
result of the overthrow of a legitimate state, the inevitable consequences of the
process of modernisation, i.e. the suffering of populations and the profound
destabilization of social structures, could be perceived as side-effects of this
process. The new status quo was presented as entirely legitimate, since the
Ottoman era, even though it had lasted more than four centuries, was mostly
interpreted as a form of foreign occupation.

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Historiography was one of the major instruments of this ideological strategy. The
emphasis placed on the continuity between the modernist present and a remote
past (Antiquity and/or Middle Ages) created the illusion of pre-existing Balkan
nations, irrespective of time and space. This process deprived geographical
space of its concrete forms (especially the perspective of Cultural Geography)
and inspired various antagonistic mental maps, which provided the foundation for
a number of expansionist and irredentist projects (Megali Idea, “Greater
Bulgaria”, “Greater” Serbia, “Greater” Romania, “Greater Albania”, “Undivided”
Macedonia). However, even deleted from collective memory, geographical space
not only changed drastically, it also served as the instrument of this dramatic
evolution. The urban context probably constitutes the most appropriate setting in
which to observe this dual phenomenon, in which geographical space functioned
as both the reflection and the agent of geopolitical transformation. Innovations
and tragedies were more frequent and intense in the urban context, especially in
the big cities, during the period when the Balkan states were entering the modern
era.

The Ottoman Urban Heritage in the Balkans

Although the Balkans cannot compete with Western Europe in terms of urban
tradition, a few important cities did develop in the Ottoman Empire. In the
beginning, their existence was due to their military and administrative functions,
while their later growth came as a result of the exchanges that developed
between Europe and the East during the 18th and the 19th centuries. The
crossroads location of the Balkans offered significant opportunities for
commercial activities, at a time when the expanding European influence could
not be based solely on economies and trade networks that were still inadequate.
The Ottoman middlemen (Greek Orthodox but also Armenians and Jews) made
substantial profits from this situation, and this new source of wealth nurtured
urban growth.

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Thus, a number of Balkan cities developed in an atmosphere described by 19th
century travellers who were half-amused and half-irritated: a chaotic environment
full of colors, smells, sounds, faces, costumes and cultures in strong contrast
with the organized environment of their native western Renaissance cities.
However, this apparent chaos concealed a very organized religious, social and
economic life, far from the eyes of those rapidly transient travelers. The
inhabitants of these important Ottoman cities, subdivided into religious
communities, managed to live a common city life, under the Ottoman rulers’
supervision and arbitration. In addition to religious identities, a combination of
language and division of labor defined the social environment of the city as an
intricate fabric that did not classify society along rigid and clear-cut lines, as it
would during the nationalist era. This diversity, together with the interpenetration
of social spheres, explains part of the chaotic appearance of cities like
Constantinople, Belgrade, Skopje, Sarajevo, Smyrna or Salonica. Therein lies
one of the main reasons for their economic success: they constituted nodes of
extensive commercial networks covering the Mediterranean, the Black Sea,
Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The major Ottoman cities were crossroads
of many Diasporas and, as such, were altogether different from many western
cities that had been founded on the nationalist ethos. The same was true of the
large cities of Central and Eastern Europe that also developed a highly
cosmopolitan atmosphere and hosted many representatives of the Ottoman
Empire.

Monuments of the past were not valued as cultural heritage or historical objects,
but preserved through their continued use and re-use. Although constantly
altered to serve new needs, they remained alive, as new cultural or religious
elements were introduced, not as antagonistic but as the evolution of the old,
such as the architectural tradition of Byzantine churches that was frequently
preserved in Ottoman mosques. The city functioned constantly through a mix of
different icons, continuously reinterpreted by emerging trends. Its landscape
expressed an uninterrupted integration of space with time. On a daily basis, the

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mixed society of the Ottoman city reflected, expressed and experienced the co-
existence of monuments echoing previous historical periods.

The new spaces of modernity

With the creation of the Greek State, modernity forcefully invaded Ottoman
space. This new state, usually presented as the awakening of a dormant Greek
Nation and was in fact a masterpiece of European historical imagination and
geopolitical engineering, was detached from the rest of the Ottoman territory and
designated as Greek land. The European powers, strongly influenced by
Neoclassicism, imposed this specific partitioning on the Ottoman rulers: an
ellipse defined by the two symbolic centres of Ancient Greece, Athens and
Sparta, clearly indicates the form of what was to become the first Greek territory.

The transformation of this space into a national territory followed a process of

multiple centralizations: military, political, ideological, cultural and finally
economic. A mercenary army accompanied the first Greek King and started by
combating the local barons and warlords. Legitimate violence, until then diffuse,
was concentrated in the hands of the royal government. Political centralization
followed. The King invited the surviving local gentry to join him in the capital and
share centralized political power. Economic centralization took more time, as it
was related to technological innovations: essentially the introduction of steam
power in transportation. The other important aspect of centralization was Culture
and Identity. Academic institutions in Athens (University, Academy) elaborated
the profile of the homo hellenicus: he should be Orthodox Christian and speak
Greek, as defined by the Athens intellectual elite. This new cultural model was
disseminated from the centre towards the periphery through the schools and the
army and, generation after generation, it homogenized an initially heterogeneous
population.

The base and the main instrument of this transformation was the Greek political
capital: Athens. Athens is the very symbol of the ideological strategy of Modernity

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in the Balkans. An almost completely new town (after centuries of decline from
its ancient glory and devastated during the War of Independence), it has been
presented as the essence of historical continuity through its archaeological
treasures. New Athens, this new city, was designed and built on the model of the
19th-century neoclassical style and constitutes the very prototype of historical
imitation. According to the new, modern, national ideology, the Greeks, through
their Revolution, returned to their national essence, after centuries of national
distortion. Similarly, Athens erased its Ottoman past through neoclassicism and
reincarnated its essence as the center of Greek culture. All the changes that
transformed a pre-modern Ottoman space into a modern national territory
originated from Athens, benefited Athens and were expressed in the Athens
landscape.

Athens introduced a new geopolitical model in the Balkans, inspired by the West-
European regime of territoriality (or the “Westphalian” model), and in complete
contradiction to the Ottoman model. From then on, the two models engaged in
fierce competition, which is still going on, as the recent Yugoslav wars have
shown. The nationalist capital city promoted centralization and cultural
homogenization throughout the national territory. Meanwhile, the old traditional
Ottoman cities suffered tremendous losses of diversity. In Greece the destinies of
Athens and Salonica suffice to demonstrate the struggle between tradition and
modernity. Salonica used to be one of the three most important cities in the
Ottoman Empire when Athens was little more than a large village. As a crossroad
of Diasporas, it gathered a large Jewish population, mostly originating from
Spain, and extremely active in the Jewish Diaspora. The Orthodox and Muslim
communities were also strongly present in a multilingual environment. Salonica
was thus an extraordinary center of cultural, religious and political innovation
inside the Ottoman Empire. Greek Socialism and Turkish Nationalism both have
strong roots in this city, which undoubtedly constituted the cultural center of the
Balkans. However, once Athens and Salonica became part of Greek territory,
they started changing rapidly: Athens grew more and more important while

24
Salonica lost its multicultural character and became a periphery of the Greek
capital, adopting Athens’ cultural models. While Athens built its modern memory,
Salonica moved rapidly towards amnesia.

Neoclassicism, the instrument of 19th century Europeanization

The new urban ethos was expressed, inter alia, through architectural and urban
symbols. Iconography, a concept introduced in political geography by Jean
Gottmann, is an appropriate term to describe their function. These iconographies
vary with time and also from place to place. They played a fundamental role in
transforming the ideological and political visions of the peoples of the new Balkan
nation-states and in building a new consciousness. This is why the study of the
history of architecture and urban planning in the Balkans must be closely
associated with the geopolitical transformations of the past two centuries.

In the early stage, history was the main theme of modernity’s discourse.
Neoclassicism was fundamental to the process of Greek nation building. Not only
did the new Greek Nation appear as an example of the “historical imitation” of
European neoclassicism, but at the same time, its very creation legitimised
Neoclassicism. Athens society included a rising Greek bourgeoisie as well as a
strong European group in which intellectuals occupied a dominant position. The
European Archeological Schools represented the core of the European cultural
and political investment in Greece. They were discreetly situated on the margins
of the city center, as if to hide this outside help to the descendants of the Greeks.

The strong neoclassical composition of the Athens centre reflects the dominant
spirit of Greek Nationalism during the first part of the 19th century, when Europe
considered the Greek State as the natural inheritor of the Ottomans in the
Balkans. However, at the turn of the century, a German historian argued that
very little Ancient Greek blood flowed in the veins of Modern Greeks, while the
rise of Bulgarian national sentiment became a serious threat to Greek territorial
aspirations. The Greek national discourse had to respond to the new conditions:

25
Paparrighopoulos, a nationalist historian of genius, developed a new idea,
according to which Greek history was uninterrupted from Ancient to Modern
times, since the Byzantine Empire was in fact a Greek-dominated Empire. The
rehabilitation of Byzantium came as Europe moved from Neoclassicism to
Historicism. The reference to the Middle Ages in the French neo-Gothic
architecture of Viollet-le-Duc was the expression of deep transformations inside
nationalism. Instead of the Enlightenment, ethnicity became the main point of
reference, witnessed in the spirit of the people and in their mother tongue. This
new romantic atmosphere was in accordance with Paparrighopoulos’ ideas and
influenced strongly the attitudes towards architectural iconographies. Neo-
Byzantine architecture was introduced in Athens, although the neoclassicist
paradigm, strongly connected to Greek nationalism, was never completely
abandoned in architecture. In urban design though, Greece was never again to
live the experiences of its first years of city building, when the precepts of
neoclassical composition could still be more or less applied in spite of the
obstruction of landowners.

Historicism started in Greece in the form of Neoclassicism but, more generally,

played a major iconographic role in all Balkan nationalisms. The choice of the
historical period varied, according to the historiographic constructs. It was
therefore natural for the Serbs and the Bulgarians to focus on the heritage of the
Middle Ages, since their mythical Golden Ages corresponded to the development
of states in competition with the Byzantine Empire (Serbian Empire, 1st and 2nd
Bulgarian Empire). The Rila monastery in Bulgaria, built during the 19th century
in pure 14th century “Bulgarian” style, is a typical example of a Balkan neo-
Byzantine monument. This monument, which receives a great number of visitors
every year, reinforces the idea that the Bulgarian nation pre-existed in a
“Bulgarian” space, long before the creation of the modern Bulgarian state. A
visible icon such as an architectural monument is much stronger than words in
conveying the idea of continuity, because it seems to reflect first-hand evidence.

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Territorial development

Architectural historicism played a major role in Balkan nationalisms because of

the major role of historiography in shaping national identities. This observation
has proven to be true with respect to the Greek case, however it should probably
be watered down in cases such as the study of Serbian nationalism. Geography
was not unimportant in consolidating the Serbian national identity, as the work of
Jovan Cvijic indicates.

After the First World War, when the Balkan territories seemed to have assumed a
more or less definitive form, the emphasis shifted from expansion to territorial
integration. With few exceptions, Balkan elites stopped looking outwards and
considered how to consolidate the gains and promote the modernisation of their
rural societies, to a large extent still Ottoman. New ideological themes appeared
where we can recognize the influence of West European fashions. The search
for the “authentic” national soul expressed anxiety in facing the contradiction
between historicist ideological constructs and cultural reality. In Greece the so-
called “interwar” generation was torn between internationalism and isolation
inside an idealized Greek essence.

Communism must be interpreted in this context, as the search for a way out of
the contradictions created by the artificiality of 19th-century nation building, by
focusing on national territory to be defended from capitalism and imperialism.
This logic of isolation deprived the communist capital cities of the cosmopolitan
dimension that should normally have characterized them. Showcases of the
regime for the outside world, they remained “provincial” and without international
allusions. The only important links to the outside world were the imported
monuments built according to the Moscow fashion.

In the Greek communist discourse before and after the Second World War,
technological rationalism went hand in hand with territorial isolationism, i.e. the
idea that the new Balkan States could live on their own resources as long as they

27
developed efficient economies and avoided imperialist exploitation. Technology
would cover the engineering part, while communism would eliminate the social
causes of waste and would protect the country from foreign interference. In
Greece the communist temptation was very strong. The failure of a communist
take-over was much more the result of external intervention than of the internal
balance of power. It is not surprising that the predominant atmosphere during the
first decades of the Cold War in Greece was not very different from that of the
Communist Balkan countries. The common policy of governments in the 1950s
and 1960s was to develop and consolidate the national territory by protecting it
from outside influences. For obvious reasons, the military dictatorship (1967-
1974) presents many more similarities with the situation on the other side of the
Iron Curtain.

During the Cold War period, architecture and urban planning abandoned the
strongly symbolical and ideological role they had played in the Balkans during
nation-building and territorial expansion. The new international style of Modern
Architecture responded sufficiently to the new needs. The emphasis on
technology and functionalism eliminated the issues of identity, irrelevant under
the umbrella of nuclear terror. Since national territories were intangible in the
context of the Cold War, there was no need to insist on historical continuity. The
main issues were related now to social cohesion. The main geopolitical pressure
in the region came from the Communist Bloc as a whole and therefore
threatened the two non-communist countries: Greece and Turkey. This danger
could have evolved into internal social and political destabilization. Urban space
was re-established as a political instrument, this time however it functioned in a
very different way: from a vector of symbols, it became the means of social
integration for the popular masses.

At first, Greece was the country most at risk. After the Civil War, the economy
was devastated, housing was short, and infrastructures were in ruins. Unless the
government managed to promote development rapidly and promise a better

28
future, the danger of new revolts would hang like a sword of Damocles over
political stability. Constantine Doxiadis, the well-known Greek urban planner, was
in charge of strategic planning after the end of the Civil War, but his rational and
westernized methods and approaches were obviously not in tune with the Greek
political and administrative traditions. Other policies were devised and proved
effective in coping with the short-term problems. However, their long-term
consequences were to be disastrous for the environment and, to a large extent,
for the political and economic culture of the country.

Construction of housing became a rapidly growing economic activity, organized

to distribute profits to a large spectrum of the society. In the central districts of
Athens, old one- or two-storey family houses were replaced by five or six-storey
apartment buildings, with the benefits shared between landowners and
contractors. What appeared as a magic formula for economic growth was based
on a rise in housing density, but unconditionally, without the necessary
investment in infrastructure, public spaces, schools, etc. Thus, urban problems
were relegated to the future.

The other form of short-term land exploitation for social and political purposes
was even more serious: illegal construction. Rural migrants had built houses on a
large scale on land bought on the periphery of the city, without the prerequisites
for urbanization. Through complex technical and political processes, their
properties were legalized and their small houses were replaced by multi-storey
apartment buildings. These processes moved forward, allowing a whole universe
of land speculation, electoral patronage and corruption to grow.

The parallel between the Greek experience and the Turkish gecekondu
phenomenon is obvious. The issue lies not only in the processes of construction
and their influence on the landscape and functioning of the cities, but also in the
relationship between these forms of construction and the main political choices.
Tolerating the practices related to them constituted a compromise with traditional,

29
inherited political and cultural structures with roots in the Ottoman past. The
relationship between the population and territory is a major cultural variable that
cannot be influenced easily. The parallel between Greece and Turkey shows
similar attitudes towards space, although often the two countries are presented
as very different. The common cultural background has resisted the efforts of
Modernisation and found a way to express itself in a field out of the reach of the
intellectuals in Athens, Istanbul or Ankara. Doxiadis’ failure was, in some way, a
revenge of the Ottoman culture, a form of popular resistance to rationalization.
However, this resistance was self-defeating, since the population which, at one
point, felt able to outwit the system, was also the most vulnerable to the urban
crisis resulting from these practices.

The Palimpsest of Balkan cities

As a result of Empire, Nationalism and the Cold War, many Balkan cities today
appear as a mix of heterogeneous elements. The urban landscape sometimes
looks like the accumulation of debris left by a storm.

The Ottoman city has survived in various forms and has tended to reproduce
itself during the post-Cold War period. Waves of migration further reinforced the
oriental atmosphere preserved by illegal construction in Greece, and by the
gecekondu in Turkey. In the former communist countries, where centralization
and population controls helped to avoid these phenomena during the Cold War,
chaotic urbanization and the invasion of market forces have often managed now
to regain the lost ground in destabilizing the environmental and aesthetic
equilibrium. Through the Hollywood-inspired villas of the Sofia nouveaux-riches,
and the Albanian workers’ transfer of the know-how of illegality from Greece back
to their own country, Balkan landscapes are being homogenized again. Ancient
temples, neo-Byzantine churches, Bauhaus blocks or garden city complexes -all
the Icons that had served to legitimize and promote modernisation under
nationalism or communism- can still be encountered here and there. We can also
observe the influence of post-modern trends in the form of shopping malls,

30
multinational corporation buildings or the rehabilitation of the historical heritage.
The resulting image is often utter confusion. This chaotic impression is very
different from the 19th-century travelers’ descriptions, because the new
confusion is real. The disorder in the landscape is an expression of the Balkan
populations’ confusion, as well as of their desperate efforts to adapt to change.
During the last two centuries, they have experienced rapid, dramatic and
successive changes, with no time to absorb or assimilate. Today, the world is
changing rapidly again. It is not surprising that confusion is growing.

Overcoming Amnesia

The policies of preserving and restoring monuments -and more generally of

urban planning and design- should take into consideration the relationship
between urban forms and landscapes and geopolitical processes. Failure will
only lead to additional confusion and chaos, especially in the former communist
countries, now opening up to market forces. These countries have better
preserved their architectural and urban environments, but are much more
threatened at present than Greece where, in many sectors, there remains little of
importance that can be easily destroyed.

On the other hand, urban landscapes can play an educational role if interpreted
and treated as an expression of the conflicts and contradictions -but also of the
cultural wealth- of Balkan history. Architecture was used for the purposes of
nation building. It can likewise be put to the service of reconstituting the memory
of places. Only if urban populations manage to be reconciled with the spirit of the
cities they inhabit, will they be able to escape confusion and to promote
environmental and landscape quality. For the Balkan cities that can benefit
greatly from high quality European tourism, this purpose also meets the need for
economic survival and therefore of social cohesion and peace.

31
Bucharest in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The evolution of the urban scale
by Anca Bratuleanu

Brief history of the city of Bucharest

The city came into being at the point where a trade route crossed the river
Dâmbovita. A modest citadel was built to defend the commercial activity
developed by merchants. Thus, the birth of the town resembled that of any other
medieval city. Bucarest was first recorded by this name in 1459, six years after
the fall of Constantinople. The relationship between these two dates may be
significant; it could explain the growth of the town as being directly linked with the
move of activities that were specific to the former Byzantine capital across the
northern border of the new Ottoman Empire.

The flourishing trade of the 17th and 18th centuries was important for the
development of Bucharest, and is reflected in its urban configuration. The
concentration of population was mainly due to its designation as capital city in
1861, but also to its importance as an Orthodox capital attracting Orthodox
refugees from regions south of the Danube. The regulations were derived from
Byzantine laws dating from the 14th century, and appeared to be quite well
adapted to local traditions and the existing institutional framework.

The modernisation of the town –initiated by the Russian administration in 1830-

1831– consisted of applying urban regulations to planning, controlling the town’s
growth and administration, and breaking with the former medieval (or pre-
modern) regulations. The growth spurt witnessed in the second half of the 19th
century was supported by strong economic activity and mirrored by the
increasing density of buildings. The development of a new middle class which, as
historians affirm, had not become an important factor in city life until this period,

32
and the city’s growing political and economic role as capital of the Romanian
Kingdom, both conduced to creating a new urban landscape.

In a landscape strongly linked to and based on the extant pre-modern urban

tissue, large-scale urban interventions began to be initiated in the late 19th
century in order to transform the town in accordance with the pattern of
contemporary European capital cities. The process –which consisted of following
an urban policy based on aesthetic, functional and economic precepts inspired
by the West– accelerated in the interwar period of the 20th century and continued
until 1944.

Things changed dramatically after 1944. These changes included the

disappearance of private property, the introduction of economic planning based
on the rules of the "socialist economy" – meaning generally an arbitrary decision
by some political leader. We should not forget the ideological opposition to terms
like "free market", "consumer economy " or "profit", which were banished from
the vocabulary. The result of this so-called "economic policy" led to the freezing
of the financial machinery naturally involved in urban life. To these must be
added the various social factors: peasants were deprived of their private
property, which led to the growth of the industrial section of the city owing to
migration of the population from villages to cities, especially to Bucharest. This
resulted in an urgent need for housing, which was solved by the construction of
huge districts of blocks of flats. This housing became increasingly uniform and
inadequate for the habits and needs of the new urban population, and for what
might be called a decent life. No less important were the cultural changes that
these developments brought in their wake for two or three generations.

These, briefly, were the main features of the urban context into which "the free
market", "private property", and "consumption" were suddenly thrust. It is obvious
that the city was totally unprepared for what was to follow in the years after 1990.

33
Regarding architectural styles, we can speak about French eclecticism as
covering the various building types, both private and public buildings, mainly in
the 19th century. In the 20th century, there were two opposing directions
expressed by the Neo-Romanian style and European Modernism. Sometimes
the so-called “modern architecture” of the communist period supplements the
extant architectural background in an acceptable way. It should be pointed out,
however, that this is the exception rather than the rule.

To illustrate this development and its subsequent steps, I have chosen one
particular case study: an area located outside the city’s core, as it was defined in
the 19th century. It is a "recent" street, the only case of a medieval Bucharest
street produced by an urban decision. Its name was initially Podul Mogosoaiei.
The first word means "bridge", as the wood-covered streets used to be called;
the second word is the name of the summer country residence of the ruler, prince
Constantine Brâncoveanu. It was he who decided –in about 1700– to build this
road in order to connect his Bucharest residence with his summer palace. It was
often asserted that he chose this direction as a political gesture: he had to
demonstrate his power over some of his opponents – whose urban possessions
were bisected by the new street. This may be true, but we cannot deny that the
route was judicious from the geographical point of view; in a territory susceptible
to floods, it benefited from the high ground on which it was built.

The study I shall present started in an unusual manner. The person ordering it,
who owned a hotel situated on Calea Victoriei (formerly Podul Mogosoaiei),
asked me to study the possibility of improving the hotel’s main façade. Strange
though it may seem, in order to solve this problem I felt the urgent need to
analyse the urban mechanisms and their alterations up to 1983, the date the
hotel was built. In other words, the study was based on analysing the site in the
historical plans of Bucharest.

34
The first analysis of the 18th and 19th century plans of the city showed that the
segment of Calea Victoriei in question (called Podul Mogosoaiei then, as noted
earlier) was outside the city centre, as defined at the beginning of the 19th
century. A comparison with the old plans indicated that the basic layout of the
plots was not the 19th-century one, which had been determined by geographical
position and by the presence of areas that were inappropriate for building, and
was drastically modified around 1900. This change was associated with the
1880-1883 flood protection works to control and deepen the river Dâmbovita,
thereby eliminating the marshlands near the site of the study. In this way, we can
affirm that the constant grid used by later development is the one represented in
the 1911 plan.

The overlapping of the 1911 plan with the Borroczyn plan suggests that some old
parcels of land were preserved, while others were enlarged by merging with
neighboring plots or with land recovered from the former flood area. There was a
kind of movement in the configuration of the plots, which seems to have been
oriented towards increasing the size of land holdings. Another two factors appear
as defining the area in 1911: while the dimensions of plots along the street
tended to remain the same, there was a tendency to replace small buildings with
larger ones. It is easy to identify the social and economic support for the growth
of this trend: the Bucharest elite was becoming increasingly interested in this part
of the city. Unfortunately, there are no official plans of the area that existed
before 1960. Thus, this plan on which interwar buildings have been marked is a
reconstruction, i.e. the result of collating information from a number of different
sources.

Comparing it with the 1911 plan, one can observe that the configuration of the
plots has generally been preserved, while the built fabric has changed. This is
visible especially in the district near the Royal Palace Square, an area that has
not preserved its residential character. The dual public and private function is
housed in buildings that cover almost the entire surface of the plot.

35
Considering the shape and the large dimensions of the land parcels, architects
often chose the formula of a building organised around an interior court.
Buildings generally consisted of shops and offices located on the façade facing
the street, while apartments tended to be oriented toward the interior court and
the back garden.

The case I shall present was built according to the same pattern. It is the MICA
Society building, better known as the Nestor Building, named after the owner of
the famous cafeteria on the ground floor. The building was erected on a plot
visible on the 1911 plan, on which an imposing building of French influence
dating from the late 19th century was already standing. The new building,
constructed to a design by architect Duiliu Marcu –one of the most famous
Romanian architects of the period– was erected in two stages. The back part of
the building, designed for housing, was added to the existing 19th century
building in 1931; in 1937, the old building was replaced by the front section that
housed offices and the Nestor cafeteria. The interior court was a mixed private-
public space, a compensation for the narrow street, which was the most elegant
street in Bucharest at this period, a sort of "Corso" for the city’s high-life.

Two large urban interventions took place in the vicinity of the Nestor Building
between 1960 and 1973. They were made in order to permit the extension of the
Royal Palace as the National Art Museum, and to facilitate the flow of vehicular
traffic. Only the latter intervention affected the view of the building from the
Palace Square.

This is a picture of what remained of the Nestor Building in 1977, after the
earthquake that destroyed a large number of buildings – mostly those
constructed in the interwar period. For Ceausescu this was an opportunity to
discover his vocation as an urban planner, and he started working on his
megalomaniac projects; it is true, that he did so with the help of architects.

36
This plan shows what happened to the entire Nestor Building site and its
surroundings. The comparison of the new hotel plan with that of the former
building and the layout of the surrounding plots are, I think, eloquent enough. The
magnitude of the new building and its location produce a fracture in the urban
fabric, and implicitly on the level of its scale. It had the effect of an explosion of
the urban fabric. It is obvious that such a large-scale building could not present a
facade harmoniously integrated into the surrounding architecture. And, obviously
again, this was not a priority issue for the authors of the (Ceausescu) project.

It is not my intention to exalt the merits of the urban planners and architects
working in the interwar period. I just want to point out the fact that, unlike their
successors, these city planners did know how to adapt the new architecture to
the existing structure of the town.

The studies published by interwar urban planners and architects in Urbanism, the
most important journal of the time, shed light on their efforts to reconcile two
divergent tendencies: to preserve the structure of the pre-modern city and to
employ scientific urban planning methods. In other words, modern urban
planning, strongly connected to the European and international urban thinking of
the period, was applied to valuable local patterns.

The reading of the city, illustrated by the example I have cited, shows, I hope,
that this theoretical approach led to a quality of city life to which any urban
planner or architect of our time could aspire.

37
Sofia in two centuries: It grows but does not age
Part A
by Ljubinka Stoilova

The main stages in the political, social and stylistic development of the city of
Sofia will be outlined in two parts, as follows:
Part A
• Mid-19th century until National Liberation, 1878;
• Late 19th century until the First World War;
Part B
• The interwar period;
• From the end of World War II to the late 1980s;
• After 1989.

The main settlement of the ancient Thracian tribe of Serdi in the 8th century BC,
later called Ulpia Serdicae by the Romans, was one of the most important feudal
towns in the Bulgarian state with the Slavic name Sredets after the early 9th
century. It became part of the Ottoman Empire with the name of Sofia in the late
14th century.

Mid-19th century until National Liberation, 1878

Having once been the province’s main town, Sofia fell into decline in the early
19th century. After the Russian-Turkish war of 1829 it was surrounded by a
defensive moat. The skeleton of the town, with a random system of narrow,
crooked streets, was created by six main roads that started in its centre and
connected it with Kyustendil-Thessaloniki and Skopje, Nis-Belgrade, Lom-Vidin,
Pleven-Rousse, Plovdiv-Constantinople, and the industrial centre of Samokov.

38
In the 1860s, these roads were improved and the main streets were straightened
and widened during the rule of Midhat Pasha, Governor of the Danubian province
called Tuna vilaet. The main streets were broadened by cutting off the eaves of
houses and demolishing entire rows of buildings, thus creating the basis for the
town’s future layout.

According to some authors, Midhat Pasha had either invited foreign engineers
and architects to contribute to his urbanisation programme or French architects
had drawn up a cadastral survey for the Ottoman state administration.

Bulgaria obtained its political independence as a result of the Russian-Turkish

war of 1877-78. In 1879 Sofia was designated the capital city, and inherited
some 20 ethnically differentiated quarters, with fewer than 20,000 inhabitants and
about 3106 buildings, 100 of which were for public use: schools, churches,
mosques, caravansaries, a textile mill, religiously separated cemeteries and
several specialised market places for grain, salt, horses, copper and cattle.

Late 19th century to World War I

The first to assist in the reconstruction of Sofia and the drawing up of cadastral
surveys and plans were Russian army engineers and technicians. Such a survey
was made by military topographer Margeevic (1879). The same year the Czech
municipal engineer Jiri (Georg) Prosek worked out a partial plan for the district
around the grain market behind the mineral baths.

Another Czech, Adolf Vaclav Kolar who was Sofia’s chief municipal architect,
assisted by his fellow countryman Vaclav Roubal and Russian engineer Kopitkin,
a state officer, drew up a cadastral survey of the streets that was approved by
the Prince in January 1880. A street regulation survey conducted at the
Municipality by V. Roubal and the Italian engineer Licurgo Amadey was likewise
approved in April 1880 and followed by rapid implementation of regulations in the
eastern part of the city. The merger of the property register and street regulation

39
surveys into one integrated master plan was approved by the Municipal Council
and the Prince in June 1881

Thus, in line with famous 19th-century models such as the plans of Paris and
Vienna, Sofia acquired a combined radial-circular system, whose backbone
consisted of two main north-south and east-west axes that intersected each other
at the central city square and five main roads leading out. A ring boulevard was
built on top of the filled-in defence moat. An extended cadastral layout was drawn
up by city engineer Karl Trnka (1884-87) and implemented with the guidance of
Kopitkin as director of the State Department of Public Buildings.

The main city square was moved from its initial location near the Turkish mosque
and mineral baths to the Orthodox cathedral intersection. By the end of the 19th
century, a second semi-circular zone was created around the city core together
with a second semi-ring boulevard. The inclusion of Sofia in the trans-European
railway network (1887) and the railway station planned for the future extended
the survey works northward.

Within the Sofia Basin, the city developed primarily westward as can be seen on
the 1897 cadastral survey of the city and its neighborhoods drawn up by Wilhelm,
Johan and Ludwig Bartel. The Bartels had been working on a new layout of the
city since 1888, under the leadership of the chief architect Alexi Nachev at the
municipal Property Register and Regulation Department, founded by the
ambitious mayor D. Petkov, who was responsible for initiating large-scale
regulation and modernisation in the city up to 1893.

At the turn of the 20th century, the grid of rectangular city blocks within the ring
boulevard consisted of two-to-four-storey family housing and public buildings.
Electricity was introduced into Sofia in 1900, produced by the first hydroelectric
power station in the country. In 1901 the first electric tram ran through the city.

40
Built-up areas that were relatively uniform in height formed clusters along the
most important streets and squares. In just a decade the main streets in the city
centre were paved and supplied with electric lighting and public transportation.

Neo-Baroque public buildings

The Balkan vernacular architecture typical of the previous period was replaced
by works designed in new styles by academically educated foreign designers
who produced new types of public buildings and private villas. Most of these
architects had come from Austria-Hungary. Italians, Austrians and Swiss, but
also the first Bulgarians to be educated in central or western European
universities, worked in the style of neoclassicism or neo-Renaissance.

Most of the public buildings were designed in a neo-Baroque style by foreign

architects. Examples of these are: the Foreign Ministry designed by Heinrich
Meyer (1890-93) of Switzerland, the Sofia University Rectorate by Henri
Breasson (1906) of France, and the National Theatre by the famous Vienna
studio of Fellner & Helmer (1903-07).

The neo-Byzantine trend was related to the historicism prevailing in Europe since
the mid-19th century, typical examples of which were the works of Theophil
Hansen in Austria. In the search for architectural identity at the turn of the 20th
century the neo-Byzantine vocabulary was regarded as the most appropriate in
aesthetic and psychological terms to express the local tradition. During the first
decade of the 20th century, the city centre was electrified and the tramway
system was built. The main city parks and gardens were laid out, and trees were
planted on the main boulevards. Neo-Byzantine decoration was often combined
with neo-Baroque spatial composition. Many of the ambiguous cases provided
fertile ground for the transition to the Secessionist mode of expression.

By means of a number of competitions to design and construct significant public

buildings, a vision for the systematic evolution of the city’s layout came into

41
being. In this regard, two new partial proposals for a representative public
government centre were drawn up by two Bulgarian architects, N. Lazarov (1907)
and T. Trendaflov (1912). (D. Zheleva-Martins, 2004). Three international
competitions were held to design a Royal Palace, a Palace of Justice and a
People’s Museum with a Library; they brought together ideas for the overall
organisation of the city centre from architects all over Europe, but the outbreak of
war prevented the results of these competitions from being utilised.

In the early years of the 20th century, a new plastic and spatial approach led to
the emergence of the first works in the Secessionist style, expressed in the type
of private family villas. This style had achieved maturity for less than 10 years
when the Balkan Wars (1912-13) broke out; it was fuelled by the creativity of
Bulgarian architects who had returned home after studying in universities abroad.

Expressive Secessionist architectural forms were achieved by younger Bulgarian

architects who sought to integrate their work with the local traditions while
remaining in conformity with the modern aesthetics of their time. Intense urban
and construction activities were interrupted by the Balkan Wars and World War I.
Designs for larger public buildings, such as the two banks shown here, were not
used until after the war period.

Conclusions

• Sofia was not designated the capital of Bulgaria until 1879, after a long period
of decline into a small backward settlement.
• During Bulgarian political independence and free economic initiative (late 19th
century until World War I) the city developed in close economic cooperation
and exchange with the rest of Europe.
• Up to the turn of the 20th century, foreign and Bulgarian architects worked
simultaneously in Sofia, thus styles typical of different eras appeared
together in the eclecticist urban landscape.

42
• Contemporary ideas in town planning and architectural design were imported
at the turn of the 20th century by Bulgarian urban planners and architects
who had studied abroad, due to the lack of architectural schools in Bulgaria.
• The long delay in the city’s urban and architectural development was almost
surmounted for a period of some 30 years before the Balkan Wars and
World War I, when Sofia acquired the image of a modern European city for
a while.

43
Sofia in two centuries: It grows but does not age
Part B
by Petar Iokimov

Between the two world wars

In Sofia, the depression that followed World War I was accompanied by an

unprecedented housing shortage due to the influx of almost half a million internal
migrants from rural areas and thousands of refugees from former Bulgarian
territories. The city grew rapidly with some 18 new regional housing estates, on
which small family houses were mainly built. The mass plundering of municipal
lots forced the Municipality to promote the construction of housing by distributing
plots, and funding and organising cooperatives.

In the central part of the city, the cooperative mode of constructing multi-storey
apartment buildings and houses for rent became the most common one.
Gradually, clusters of buildings came into being along the central streets and
around the squares. This process started in the mid-1920s, continued into the
1930s and visibly changed the urban landscape and scale. The development of
the latter was integrated and monitored by a special commission, making the
design of buildings a complex artistic task and a factor in city planning. A series
of laws controlled the city’s development at the time.

Sofia was divided into four zones with a specific building height that increased as
one proceeded from the periphery to the central core of the city within the ring.
The picture of the city in 1924 is rather eloquent: it had lost its street grid and its
clear compact form, its overall development having been dictated fortuitously.
The need was felt among professionals to try and rectify this situation, thus
provoking discussions about the objectives of their work and the necessity of
working out a new master plan for the city.

44
There was a rapid increase in construction in the historic city centre after the mid-
1920s. Economic stabilisation produced many significant state and private office
buildings and banks. Intensive construction of hotels and office buildings created
street front façades and corner accents at intersections. The style of architecture
built was a function of the generation of the designers.

Older architects still used Secessionist elements of expression but by the 1930s,
they had gradually accepted the vocabulary of Art Déco. Two new books by
Bulgarian urban planners were very popular (Urbanism Handbook by G. Nenov,
1924 and The Modern City by T. Trendafilov, 1925) and showed the extent to
which modern European urban theory and practice had been assimilated into
local professional views (D. Zheleva-Martins, 2004).

Changes in style gained ground in the field of architecture as well. The need to
build housing facilities quickly and economically and the earthquake in 1928
imposed the introduction of contemporary construction technologies and
materials (such as reinforced concrete structures and other technical
innovations) and necessitated the application of Modern ideas for standardising
the rational design of buildings for mass public use (apartments, schools,
hospitals, and other public and industrial edifices).

In the period between 1920 and 1934, many urbanising actions were carried out,
such as building the water supply system from Rila Mountain to Sofia that was
designed by municipal engineers (1925-33), and the provision of sewerage. The
tramway network of 1901 was extended three times. The electricity supply was
improved. The number of gardens and parks in the city increased from 11 in
1918 to 60 in 1938.

Younger architects who had been trained abroad in the late 1920s shared
contemporary Modernist ideas and attempted to interpret them in a specific
regional manner. At the same time their work introduced the influence of the

45
architectural schools of central and western Europe where they had studied. For
a short period between the late 1920s and late 1930s, architectural design
shifted to a rational mode with flexible spaces, plain façades and lucid,
undecorated volumes.

Among the typical Modern features used were horizontal bands of windows, flat
terrace roofs and the absence of structural corner columns on façades. In 1931,
a special commission was appointed to prepare the legislation to extend Sofia
and to draft a program for a future town planning competition. In 1932-33 a bill
was drafted, accompanied by lengthy discussions and conferences that shaped a
professional vision of the project’s goals and criteria. As a result of these
preparations, a coloured layout was compiled (1933) that included all newly
adjoined territories and incorporated neighboring villages over a total area of 57
sq. km, thus aspiring to serve as a detailed basis for further planning. It also
recorded the main boulevards and the zones with different terms of construction.
The total population of the city at the time was 287,976 (D. Zheleva-Martins,
1998, 2000, 2004).

This plan, known as the A. Mussman plan, raised objections, heated arguments
and criticism among the population. Although it was not implemented in its
entirety due to the outbreak of World War II, some of its ideas are reflected in the
planning of Sofia up to the present time.

After A. Mussman’s initial efforts, a new plan drafted by a team of Bulgarian

urban planners was delivered to the Municipal Council at the end of November
1937 and approved by a special law on 12 April 1938. The plan aimed to turn
Sofia into a modern and socially well urbanised city with a second ring road and
sanitary housing, in a system organised according to garden-city principles, with
wedge-shaped green areas radiating out from the city centre to the periphery.

The various attempts to define architectural identity in terms of the local tradition

46
were united by the movement in favour of “native” art that arose in 1919. It
expressed the nostalgia of intellectuals after the defeat of nationalist ideals
during the wars. In the 1920s a specific vocabulary was worked out in designs for
Orthodox churches as a continuation of the prewar neo-Byzantine style. Although
conservative in nature, this trend succeeded in developing an innovative
approach in which modern stylistic features were interpreted dialectically with
traditional construction materials and forms. The search for an identifiable
vernacular architecture intensified as nationalist views became stronger in
Bulgaria, together with the egalitarian tendencies that were predominant in the
rest of Europe after 1933.

In 1934 a coup d’etat established an authoritarian regime in Bulgaria which, inter

alia, led to a gradual synchronisation of stylistic developments in the fields of
architecture and town planning, dominated by the state. The first to be influenced
were stylistic and compositional principles.

In the second half of the 1930s, architects turned to strong neo-Classical forms
and symmetry of façades in designs for significant public buildings. The British-
US bombardments of Sofia (1943-44) caused widespread devastation in the city.
Some 12,568 buildings in the historic centre were destroyed. Partial
reconstructions were conducted until the end of the 1940s. Established local
architects revived the image of the city by rebuilding demolished houses, adding
new floors to those that had survived, or building new housing on vacant lots. In
this way, the silhouettes of central streets and squares were united.

After the proclamation of Bulgaria as a socialist country (1947), city planning and
architecture entered a stage of development deeply influenced by Soviet
planning and design. Several revisions of the Mussman Plan (L. Tonev, 1945; D.
Mitov, 1949) took into account the political changes in Bulgaria and a new public
centre was designed for the city.

47
A decree issued by the Council of Ministers on 20.11.1951 ordered the short-
term elaboration of a plan for the new city centre to be built on what remained of
the square in front of the Royal Palace (L. Tonev, P. Tashev, etc). The aim was
to represent the new ideological platform of socialist realism by urban and
architectural achievements that were “national in form and socialist in content”,
according to the famous slogan of the time. The implementation of this design
was limited to the city centre and the idea of demolishing large numbers of
significant historical buildings was not carried out.

Socialist realism was directed against the Modern movement and its style,
considering them decadent. In contrast to them it embraced a strong neo-
Renaissance mode of expression with elements that alluded directly to traditional
features of local 19th century residential and religious architecture.

The relaxation of the political and social atmosphere after 1956 influenced the
elaboration of a New General Urban Plan (1961). This plan by L. Neikov
envisaged clear zoning and a ring of modern housing estates in the southeastern
and western parts of the city to provide accommodation for a growing number of
inhabitants (up to 800,000). A modern industrial zone with railway stations and
an extended airport was located in the north. The same political change after
1956 caused a swift transition to the vocabulary of postwar Modernism that
influenced architectural expression up to the late 1980s.

After the 1970s, the population of Sofia rose to about 1,000,000, and huge
housing estates were built in the historic centre. Contrary to the interwar period,
the height of city buildings now increased as one proceeded from the centre to
the periphery.

The political changes that took place after 1989 initiated feverish construction of
new apartment and office buildings. Urban measures included many partial
changes to the 1961 master plan, instituting new regulations and construction

48
surveys for individual quarters. All this led to occasional discordant building
practices throughout the city but especially in the centre, where strong
investment interests prevailed, and historic buildings were even demolished.
Often new constructions exceeded the cornice lines of existing buildings, thus
disrupting street fronts.

After 1989

A series of town planning competitions that were held after 1990 failed to resolve
the complicated urban situation in a satisfactory way. For the period 1998 - 2003
a team of 400 specialists worked out a new master plan for the city, final
ratification of which is imminent. In it, five public service axes and three
residential districts have been created.

Its basic structural principles are:

• regional approach;
• preservation and renovation of the historic city centre within its present
borders;
• limitation of built-up areas in the southern housing districts while retaining
contact with the natural environment;
• development of northwestern and southeastern diagonals by companies
concerned in communication and transportation;
• construction of the northern housing district.

In the city’s new general plan, emphasis has been laid on preserving the cultural
and historical heritage within the city centre. Preparatory steps have been taken
to have the historic part of the city included on the ICOMOS/UNESCO list of
World Heritage Sites.

49
Conclusions

• The period from the end of World War I to the late 1980s was the time of
Bulgarian modernism.
• The architectural and urban development of the city in the interwar period
ran in close parallel with all European trends and gave rise to the stylistic
evolution of Art Déco in the 1920s and the Modern Movement in the
1930s, with a simultaneous permanent search for identifiable local
architectural expression.
• After World War II Sofia went through a specific period of socialist realism.
Although its stylistic and urban development returned to the track of
Modernism in the 1960s, the city entered a new phase of delay in its
overall economic and urban development until the late 1980s.
• Since 1989 Sofia has been going through the transition to free-market
economic development that complicates its situation, in addition to the
many urban problems that accumulated during the previous period. The
municipal authorities hope to overcome the crisis through the newly
elaborated general city layout.

50
51
URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN BELGRADE:
PLANS AND REALITY
by Dr. Miloš R. Perović and Dragana Ćorović

Background

Walking through the streets of Belgrade today, it is hard to believe that it is a city
with a long urban history, because virtually all one can see are twentieth century
buildings. Archaeological evidence, however, shows a continuity of human
settlement from very early periods of civilisation, beginning with a Celtic village in
the 3rd century BC and later the Roman fortress of Singidunum. Old cartographic
sources in archives in Istanbul, Vienna and Budapest provide a distinct picture of
Belgrade during the period of Turkish rule (mid-15th to mid-19th centuries, with
brief intervals of Austrian occupation). For more than four centuries, Belgrade
was a powerful bastion of the Ottoman Empire facing the Christian European
west.

After a successful rebellion at the beginning of the 19th century, a semi-

independent small Serbian principality was established with Belgrade as its
capital. At that time, Belgrade was a small town with a population of some 5,000
people living below the huge fortress at the confluence of the Danube and Sava
rivers. The city also housed a large Turkish garrison and had the physical and
ethnic structure characteristic of Ottoman cities.

In just 140 years –i.e. from 1867, when the last remnants of the Turkish garrison
left Belgrade's fortress, to the present– Belgrade has undergone a tremendous
transformation. From a small Ottoman border settlement, it has become a large
city of 1,500,000 inhabitants, with a European physical structure, modern
infrastructure works and strong ambitions to become comparable in aesthetic
terms with the most beautiful cities in the world. This ambition was supported by
the princes and kings of Serbia and by the elected representatives of Belgrade's

52
City Assembly supported by the municipal population.

Five master plans have played a very important role in promoting these aims.
Each one was commissioned at a key moment in the political, economic, or
social development of Serbia, Yugoslavia or Belgrade itself. The departure in
1867 of the Turkish garrison led to the creation of a fully independent state of
Serbia and to the drafting of the first modern master plan in the city's history. The
dynastic changes of 1903, which also involved a change in preferred cultural
models, were accompanied by a new plan for Belgrade in 1913. After the
enormous expansion of the territory of which Belgrade was the capital, upon the
formation of Yugoslavia in 1918, a master plan resulted in 1923. The complete
change of political ideology after the Second World War resulted in the master
plan of 1950. The last master plan was drawn up in the early 1970s after a spurt
of economic growth in the mid `60s that had led to increased automobile use,
causing serious problems of traffic congestion and air pollution.

The fate of all these master plans (except for the first, which was almost
completely implemented) is that of all such documents: no more than partial
construction was carried out according to the master plan, which, however, left a
strong residual influence on ways of thinking about the city. In other words, since
they were essentially good plans, they were inspiring documents that shaped
public opinion. This opinion later guided the city's development, if not always
precisely according to the plan, at least in its spirit. This point is indeed the main
subject of a proposed book about the spirit and philosophy of planning at various
periods, and how this spirit is reflected in the image of the city today.

The second important characteristic of all the master plans done for Belgrade is
that all of them were drawn up under strong foreign influence. Foreign
consultants were either engaged to do the job themselves, hired to assist the
local municipal officials do the work, or had their ideas blindly applied to urban
development schemes. This varied foreign influence –its roots and its

53
transformations in a provincial environment– is the second main theme of the
proposed book.

The third point of interest is that Belgrade decision-makers –princes, kings, or

elected mayors– always gave their city the best that was then available in the
planning field anywhere in the world, regardless of the cost involved. This
mechanism of positive decision-making in the process of building the city will also
be investigated.

In the mid-nineteenth century, work on the Viennese Ringstrasse and the

restructuring of that city influenced the first modern master plan of Belgrade.
Emilijan Josimović, who had been trained in the Austrian capital, was in charge
of the project. Early in the 20th century, at the peak of the influence of French
architecture and town planning, Alban Chambon, an architect trained at the École
des Beaux-Arts, was hired to beautify Belgrade. In the early 1920s, a world
competition was announced for town planning ideas on the city’s reorganisation;
the aim was to guide its future in a modern way through a new master plan. In
the 1940s, a country devastated by the Second World War and in need of
everything could not afford to hire foreign consultants, but instead sent a group of
architects and planners from its City Planning office to London to study Sir
Patrick Abercrombie's recently-adopted plan for that city. Finally, in the late
1960s, with the growth of private automobile ownership and the development of
serious traffic problems, consultants from the United States were hired to advise
on Yugoslavia’s first land use-transportation study, based on a systems-analysis
approach.

Between each of the master plans, bitter discussions took place, national and
international competitions were held, and various proposals, counter-proposals,
projects and counter-projects were prepared and submitted for public review. The
discussions dealt with ways of articulating a few key urban spaces in the city.
The proposals might have been connected or totally unconnected to the then-

54
current master plan. My book will examine the reasons why the key spaces have
remained disorganised or only partially developed on an ad hoc basis.

Summary of the Master Plans

The first modern master plan of Belgrade was drawn up by order of Prince
Mihailo Obrenović, the enlightened ruler of Serbia whose cultural ideal was the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. The plan was drafted by Emilijan Josimović, teacher of
mathematics and surveying at the Technical High School in Belgrade. His main
goal was to sweep out the entire Ottoman heritage so as to restructure Belgrade,
giving it a European image. Being a mathematician and engineer, and lacking
any artistic comprehension of urban problems, Josimović failed to propose the
construction of squares and broad avenues, although he included green spaces
and parks along the old city walls and bastions. Instead, he saw the role of city
planning in the German mode of the time, i.e. as the skill of cutting through
streets, thereby bringing order to the existing urban fabric, as well as establishing
sanitary measures for healthy life in the city. This was a realistic planning
proposal that a poor country like Serbia could implement in its entirety. Of
course, the plan echoed some of the grand plans then being realized in Vienna.
Josimović's plan was carefully implemented and succeeded in bringing a
European urban structure and appearance to the heart of historic Belgrade.

The change in the ruling dynasty at the turn of the century also brought a change
of foreign influence to Serbia. King Peter I Karadjordjević, called the "Red Prince"
owing to his personal involvement in the Paris Commune of 1871, established a
true constitutional monarchy in Serbia for the first time. In 1913, he gave the best
possible gift to the capital of his small kingdom: an École des Beaux-Arts master
plan. This great document, drawn up by Alban Chambon on the eve of the World
War I, remains the most mysterious planning proposal for Belgrade, in the sense
that almost nothing can be found about it in the Serbian press, as of course
Serbian professional journals could not be printed during the First World War. In
publications printed much later, no more than brief notes were included about the

55
plan, citing even its date and author's name incorrectly. The plan disappeared or
was probably destroyed in 1946, as the socialist government may have
considered it an unworthy bourgeois legacy. Fortunately, photographic glass
plates of this plan were recently discovered in the Archives d'Architecture
Moderne in Brussels. That part of the Chambon collection which deals with the
Master Plan of Belgrade contains the actual plan, 14 excellent perspective
drawings of the various parts of the future city, and a model. This plan is an
excellent example of Beaux-Arts urban design ideas and principles. It is
interesting to note that at about the same time, another Beaux-Arts architect,
Bouvard, drew up designs for the beautification and Europeanisation of Istanbul,
and that foreign architects and planners also drafted plans for two other Balkan
capitals, Athens and Sofia.

After the First World War, Yugoslavia was formed and a young and very
ambitious king ascended to the throne. Belgrade, now the capital of a much
larger state, broadened the ambitions of the ruling elite to restructure the city
according to European standards. For a while, consideration was given to
commissioning a master plan from Joze Plečnik, the famous Slovene architect
who had studied under Otto Wagner, ran a successful practice in Vienna and
Prague, and was appointed professor of architecture at the newly established
School of Architecture in Ljubljana. But, a more ambitious idea prevailed. In
1922, an international competition was announced, which ended with two first
prizes being awarded to Marcel Aubertin and Rudolf Perco. Aubertin was an
important French town planner of the period and founder of the French Town
Planning Institute, while Perco came from Otto Wagner's School of Architecture
in Vienna. The final document, the master plan itself, was prepared by Belgrade's
City Planning office in 1923, taking into account the ideas of the two first-prize
proposals as well as those of other highly-ranked entries.

The Second World War brought great changes to Yugoslavia. After the liberation
of the country from German occupation, the monarchy was abolished and the

56
main political goal of the new Marxist-oriented government became the formation
of a socialist society. The concomitant of these changes was that Belgrade was
to be fundamentally transformed and restructured. The City Planning office
started work on a new master plan which was at first heavily influenced by Soviet
ideology and by Moscow's master plan of 1935. With the break in relations
between Yugoslavia and Stalin in 1948, a group of planners was sent to Great
Britain, at that time under a Labour government, to study Sir Patrick
Abercrombie's 1944 plan for London. The new Belgrade master plan was
adopted in 1950 and provided guidelines for the city's development, ranging from
regional planning to specific proposals for the spatial organisation of a few key
urban spaces in the city. This document also provided the framework for the
development of New Belgrade, today one of the rare examples of a new district
built on a very large scale according to the principles of the Athens Charter.

During the late 1960s, Yugoslavia underwent a period of intensive economic

development, and Belgrade was faced for the first time in its history with the
problems of traffic congestion, air pollution, etc. This explains why the city
government asked US experts for help. Americans from Wayne State University,
the Detroit City Planning Office, and Alan Voorhees' consulting firm were invited
to Belgrade for two years to cooperate with the staff of Belgrade's City Planning
office in the preparation of a new planning document for the city's future
development. The Americans served as consultants, advisers and teachers. The
master plan for Belgrade adopted in 1972 was therefore structured under the
strong influence of US land use and transportation studies in the 1960s, and
bears all the characteristics of the sophisticated US planning practices of that
period. This plan still serves as the basis for the day-to-day decision-making
processes in shaping Belgrade's future development.

57
Constructing the capital of Yugoslavism:
The Identity of Belgrade Architecture, 1904-1941
by Aleksandar Ignjatović

In exploring the relations between history and society, the recent interpretative
strategies of cultural history confirm the idea that each of these relations can be
found in the production, reception and consumption of culture. It may be said that
society cannot be perceived outside its representation. The central position in the
mechanism of constructing a society, its value systems and its ideology belongs
to culture which, in Clifford Geertz’s terms, is a pattern of sense and meaning
expressed by language and other symbolic means of communication. Each
aspect of culture –material, visual and certainly architectural– constructs every
perceivable bit of knowledge and ideology. Contrary to traditional theories rooted
in positivism, which regard culture as a mere reflection of social reality and
intellectual ideas, we believe that neither society nor ideology can exist beyond
the realm of culture.

Within the context of the Yugoslav ideology labelled “national oneness” (narodno
jedinstvo) that dominated the political scene in the western Balkans between
1904 and 1941, architecture was an integral part of the idea of Yugoslavism that
emerged within the massive political changes in the region. Considering the idea
that every representation of ideology through cultural praxis and communication
through symbols is its constitutive discourse, one can trace the ideology of
Yugoslavism in its visual, architectural and spatial aspects. More specifically, it is
possible to interpret the architectural and urban landscape of interwar Belgrade –
the political, financial and cultural centre of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and
Slovenes (which became the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929)– as the
constitutive discourse of the ideology of Yugoslavism. Shaping its imagery
without allowing architecture to speak in its name would, however, be an
oversimplification.

58
The most fundamental factors in constructing Yugoslavism as an ethnic, national,
racial, cultural and political ideology were its visual and architectural
representations. In this regard, the architectural monuments built in Belgrade
between 1904 and 1941, together with their urban surroundings, could be
understood as major representative entities within the topography of
Yugoslavism. Thus, it is essential to comprehend the architecture of Belgrade, its
creation, background and imposition, not as the adornment of political ideology,
but as the very substance of the Yugoslav identity.

Using an interdisciplinary approach to the problem of Yugoslav ideology, and

treating it as a historical discursive object caught in a “historical web”, one can
assume that no single, coherent ideology existed that could be called “Yugoslav”.
Indeed, there were at least three major paradigms within the general knowledge
of the desired structure of the Yugoslav nation, and consequently, three main
paradigms of its representation. Each paradigm had a number of functions in the
establishment of Yugoslav identity in the social field, but none of them was
exclusive or hegemonic; they functioned simultaneously through different aspects
of culture.

The first paradigm could be called primordial, because it comprised the concept
of the Yugoslav nation as a primeval, authentic and autonomous phenomenon. It
denied the national, ethnic and cultural diversities of each South Slavic identity
(namely Serbian, Croatian and Slovene) and therefore any cultural difference
was considered minor, artificial and imposed by “foreign” influences, whether
from the East or West. In this view, the Yugoslav nation was perceived as
integral and homogenous, so the main task of ideology was to cast its image in
such a way as to confirm these assumptions and make visible the Yugoslav
quest for primal origins. In terms of Belgrade architecture, this image was
embedded in the contextual settings that alluded to bearers of primordial
Yugoslavism ― either the royal dynasty of Karadjordjević (which was supposedly

59
linked to the common people and, contrary to other Balkan royal families,
considered as vernacular and “national”), or invented Yugoslav traditions (such
as the cult of the unknown national hero). Because the imagined Yugoslav
identity was closely connected to the folk culture, and as a rule related to natural
surroundings, its architectural construction always connoted vernacular building
types and congenial environments. Such constructions were always imagined to
resemble the natural settings that were closely related to built structures. In this
way, Belgrade was marked by artificial landscapes as a proper ambience for the
ideal primordial architecture. One significant example is the complex of palaces
built for the Yugoslav royal family in the Belgrade suburb of Dedinje between
1922 and 1934. The main palace, created by several architects, was designed in
a style resembling the traditional Balkan mansion that can be found throughout
the peninsula. Although it was commonly known as “the Oriental house”, this
type was interpreted as originally Yugoslav and had a significant position in the
architectural construction of the primordial Yugoslav identity. The “national”
character of the new royal settlement was confirmed by its surroundings that
were cultivated in order to resemble the forested home of an imagined original
Yugoslav.

A similar case was the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Avala Hill, in the
immediate vicinity of Belgrade. It was designed by Ivan Meztrović, a famous
Croatian sculptor and one of the artists beloved by King Aleksandar
Karadjordjević I. The universal architectural semiotics of the Tomb were blurred
by caryatids dressed in folk costumes alluding to the different Yugoslav regions,
while their bodies and overall appearance represent the typical body norm image
of an ideal Yugoslav race, otherwise confirmed by various scientific accounts of
the time. The whole complex, which was erected between 1934 and 1938, was
artificially wooded as the natural environment of the fallen Serbian soldier who
was ritually transformed into the Yugoslav national hero. As in the case of
Dedinje, such an environment could have served as a specific Yugoslav
ethnoscape, to use Anthony Smith’s term. These green spaces in Belgrade

60
topography, along with their unique architectural landmarks, were vital backdrops
in the ideological map of Yugoslavism.

The second paradigm could be called syncretic, because it was rooted in the
need for the reconciliation and unification of the different ethnic, cultural and
regional traditions that came under the Yugoslav aegis in 1918. The Yugoslav
identity was conceived as a synthesis of “historical” (i.e. Serbian, Croatian and
Slovenian) particularities and of different “regional” characters. In any event, the
visual culture and architecture were the most significant sources in constructing
an image of the Yugoslav nation that was less exclusive and more tolerant of
diversity. It is important to note that the main official representations of the
Kingdom of Yugoslavia can easily be understood by such a paradigm. There
was, for example, the official state coat of arms comprising the three symbols of
the Serbian, Croatian and Slovene ethnic communities, the Yugoslav national
anthem compiled from three “national” anthems, and even the official state
language, which was named “Serbo-Croato-Slovenian”. Therefore, it is not
surprising that some of the central state-financed buildings constructed then were
designed according to the same formula. Since the architectural historiography of
the time had already “nationalised” the historical architectural heritage, which
was explained as the “national” Serbian or Croatian style, one could easily merge
them, creating the unified, composite Yugoslav architecture. Basically, the
architectural formula was made by synthesising diverse elements of Byzantine
and Romanesque architecture, regarded as essentially Eastern and Western
respectively. Such architectural styles were functional but stereotyped markers of
Serbian (Orthodox) and Croatian or Slovenian (Catholic) identities, and their
prevalence was more than welcome in the ideology of syncretic Yugoslavism.
The most prolific example of such a neo-historicist approach was certainly the
bridge dedicated to King Aleksandar I, which spanned the river Sava, connecting
historical Serbian and Croatian territories. In this context, the use of such a
Byzantine-Romanesque idiom signified both the diversity of Yugoslav culture and
the unity of the Yugoslav nation. The bridge, designed by the migrant Russian

61
architect Nikola Krasnov, was completed in 1934, just a month after the King was
assassinated in Marseilles, and stood until 1941 as a key political monument in
the centre of the Yugoslav capital. Apart from this example, there were several
grand structures in downtown Belgrade that followed the same syncretic logic.
The Post Office near the Central Railway Station at Wilson Square (1929) and
the Ministry of Post, Telegraph and Telephone (1925-1930) –both works by the
prolific architect Momir Korunović– were the most spectacular examples of
architectural expression that allude not only to diverse historical sources, but to
different vernacular traditions.

Finally, the third paradigm could be called universalist, since it comprises the
pan-ethnic ideology, which considers the Yugoslav nation, culture and state as a
legitimate part of Western civilization. The central perspective of this ideology
was the idea of a solid, stable national culture that superseded local, regional
and ethnic traditions. Representing Yugoslav identity as intrinsically European,
based on a common Greco-Roman and Christian cultural heritage and rooted in
the modern world of the West, it had a twofold aim. On the one hand, it was an
attempt to establish a coherent, unifying model of a supranational identity and, on
the other, an effort to diminish the stereotypes that marked Yugoslavia as a
European newcomer. Architectural representations within this ideological
perspective were focused on the formal historicist approach, which was based on
neo-Renaissance, neo-Baroque and neo-Classicism and their miscellaneous
eclectic combinations. Most of the state administration buildings erected in
Belgrade, such as the New Royal Palace in the city centre, the Houses of
Parliament, and many head offices, were styled in this manner. What is
particularly interesting is the fact that all these grand and monumental edifices
were located on the same axis that connected the core of the city to Topcider Hill
and the Royal Palaces in Dedinje. This was the main state axis, as well as the
central architectural representation of the new Yugoslav order that appeared in
1918. Then Belgrade became the capital of a state that was several times larger
than pre-war Serbia. Since rigid, central regime policy needed its symbolic

62
representation, Western historical styles were the perfect formula for its
embodiment, especially appropriate when gathered along one representative
axis.

These paradigms were not exclusive, but concurrent with one another. Each was
structured as a coherent ideological perspective that expressed Yugoslav identity
by different architectural means. All paradigms were perceivable not solely in
political terms, but also in the architectural and urban topography of Belgrade,
which was crucial for representing the idea of Yugoslavism. In this way, one
might assert that symbolism prevailed over utility: architecture was more
important as the substance of ideology than as the background for its function.

Finally, these paradigms of Yugoslav identity can be understood as models for

constructing the single and multinational, cultural and social identities that
correspond to the broader context of the Balkans in the 19th and the 20th
centuries. They were short-lived, but interesting models for imagining
abstractions such as a nation, a culture and a state.

63
Urban planning in the process of modernisation
and globalization in Istanbul: An overview
by Ayşe Nur Ökten

Throughout history, several shifts in political power and social momentum had
radical impacts on urban life and space in Istanbul. However, the city retained its
unique identity created by its strategic location, morphological characteristics,
and cosmopolitan life. For several centuries, this city enjoyed a unique status as
the capital of two world empires in the Mediterranean basin, and was the source
of many architectural and urban inspirations in a vast area that embraced North
Africa, the Middle East and the Balkans. Two main axes (the Mese and the
Beyazid-Edirnekapi axis), forums, agoras, the hippodrome and the commercial
units on them contributed to the growth of the city. Saint Sophia and the
‘Havariyun’ Church (the Church of Apostles, now the Fatih Complex) marked the
end of the polytheistic tradition and the beginning of the Christian era. “The Fatih
Complex (1463-1470), a social and religious ‘Forum’, was built on the road to
Edirne along the slopes of the Golden Horn, with the purpose of initiating the
growth of the city in that direction.” This was a different attitude in the choice of
location compared to the Byzantine era when forums were located on an axis
running parallel to the shore of Marmara (YTU-DCRP, 1996).

The main commercial axis of the Byzantine city retained its importance in the
Ottoman period. The Byzantine harbors on the Sea of Marmara, however, lost
their importance following the construction of the Grand Bazaar, which became
the new centre of business with several warehouses and hans in its vicinity. The
docks on the Golden Horn became more important because of the flourishing
manufacturing and trade on its slopes (YTU-DCRP, 1996). Until the mid-
nineteenth century, the main concentration of the central activities of Istanbul
remained in the Historic Peninsula, the walled city lying on the south bank of the
Golden Horn (Halic), and in Galata on the north bank (Yenen et al., 1996).

64
At the beginning of the 19th century, Istanbul consisted of three geographically
and socially distinct settlements that were separated by the sea: Istanbul (the
historic peninsula, formerly Constantinople, on the European side to the west),
Galata (a traditionally Genoese settlement to the north of the former) and
Uskudar (Skutari on the Asian side to the east). The complex urban fabric of the
Ottoman capital was interwoven with strongly differentiated social, economic,
cultural, and aesthetic influences. Various ethnic groups of different religions
worked side by side in the same workplace, but resided in separate, ethnically
homogeneous neighborhoods (mahalles). The Muslim population, which
constituted the largest group, lived in neighborhoods at the centre of the
peninsula. The Armenians, Greeks, and Jews resided in coastal neighborhoods
on the shores of the Sea of Marmara and the Golden Horn (Halic) (Celik, 1996).
The construction and operation of urban facilities for education, health, water
supply, sewerage, and accommodation for travelers, as well soup kitchens and
other charity functions, were financed and administered by the self-contained
communities through the institutions of imaret and vakif, which were specific
types of foundations. The first step towards modernisation was the formation of
an office for the “control and regulation of urban economic affairs” [Ihtisab
Nezareti] in 1826 (Rosenthal, 1980:33; Tekeli, 1994: 13).

In 1838, the Ottoman state signed the British Trade Agreement, which
symbolized the submission of the Ottoman economy to the Western world and
capitalism. The administrative transformation and reinstitutionalization necessary
for this economic relation were launched with the proclamation of the Tanzimat
(Reforms) in 1839. Rosenthal explains the objectives of the Tanzimat to be
threefold: “to reform and strengthen the Ottoman state … to restore popular
confidence in government; and to satisfy the European powers who had
increasingly interfered in the domestic affairs of the empire” (Rosenthal,
1980:31).

65
 “When the Ottoman lands became suppliers of raw materials and an open
market for the finished goods of the industrializing West, the first signs of the
process of metropolitan development became observable in the Ottoman Capital
especially during the second half of the 19th century” (Yenen et al., 1996). New
urban functions such as international finance organizations, offices and hotels
emerged in Istanbul and began to gather on the north (Galata area) and south
(Eminonu area) banks of the Golden Horn (Yenen et al., 1996). Tekeli (1994)
identifies five major categories of problems at that period:
1. The Central Business District (CBD) needed to be redeveloped to include new
docks for steamships, train stations, new post offices to provide postal and
telegraph services to the public, new banks, and new office buildings to
support new foreign transactions.
2. Residential areas needed to be differentiated in order to serve the recently
modified system of social stratification and emerging westernized life styles.
3. New residential areas needed to be developed due to the rapid growth of the
urban population.
4. New urban developments required an adequate infrastructure network.
5. Measures for the prevention of large-scale fires were needed urgently
because wooden structures in residential areas were the cause of the frequent
large fires that swept the city.

The first Istanbul city plan was drawn up in 1836-37 by Helmuth von Moltke, who
had been commissioned by Sultan Mahmud II. Tekeli identifies this map as the
“… starting point in the transformation of the fabric …” (Tekeli, 1994: 30).
According to a 1839 document, Moltke’s plan proposed to construct a network of
roads, to increase the percentage of brick and stone constructions in the city’s
building stock, and to erect firewalls between wooden houses. The building code
[Ebniye Nizamnamesi] for Istanbul was issued in 1848 -1849 (Tapan, 1998). A
further step was taken in 1855, during the Crimean War: An institution called
“sehremaneti” was established under European influence after the French model
of the prefecture (Rosenthal, 1980; Tekeli, 1994).

66
The transition from wooden structures to brick and stone buildings started in the
second half of the 19th century (Tekeli, 1994: 31). The first examples were the
mansions and villas of the élite and military buildings. In 1856, upon the
termination of the Crimean War, “… Sultan Abdul Mecid Han (1839-61)
inaugurated his new palace at Dolmabahçe with a state dinner prepared and
served in the French manner. The transfer of the royal residence from Topkapi
Sarayi across the Bosphorus to the European section of Istanbul and its manner
of celebration were symbolic” (Rosenthal, 1980:3). Tramlines, a very short
subway and a railway connection to the suburbs were established between 1864
-1874 (Tapan, 1998). In 1882, a law for urban development and construction was
enacted, and new types of residential areas and dwellings emerged in that
decade.

“After the World War and during the War of Independence, Ankara became the
headquarters of the Anatolian resistance. Thus Istanbul was reduced to the
status of a capital without a sovereign land to control” (Tekeli, 1994:50). In
contrast to Istanbul, the new capital (1923) Ankara represented the enthusiasm
and hope of the nation, the vision of a politically and economically independent,
industrialized, modern, westernized, dynamic, and egalitarian nation state.
During the 1920s, the government focused on initiating economic activity,
industrialization and agricultural modernisation, and created several growth
centres in Anatolia. The key elements of development policy were the promotion
of basic industries, the balanced construction of facilities for services like
education and health all over the country, and the establishment of a national
railroad network.

In the 1930s, there were efforts to create growth poles in Anatolia as part of a
statist development model. During that decade, the major problem concerning
Istanbul was how to transform this city of consumption into a centre of
production. There were two obstacles to this goal: (a) There was no specific

67
program for the development of the urban economy; (b) The city’s transportation
facilities were inefficient and inadequate for any kind of economic growth.
Several European planners (H. Elgötz, A. Agache, J.H. Lambert in 1933; M.
Wagner in 1935) were invited to comment on problems and to propose possible
solutions. In 1936, Henri Prost was invited to prepare a master plan for Istanbul,
which was completed in 1937 and approved by the government in 1939. Prost
declared the land around the Golden Horn as an industrial area, which later
proved to fall short of meeting Istanbul’s growth potential. His main concerns
were rather beautification and transportation. Thus, he emphasized the
importance of preserving heritage and combining it with the concept of a modern
city, and focused on three aesthetic issues: conservation of the historic silhouette
and natural beauty of the Bosphorus, enhancement of historic monuments with
urban design and conservation projects, and erecting new works of modern
architecture. Regarding urban transportation, he suggested that Istanbul be
provided with a network of motorways, viaducts, bridges, and tunnels. This
approach later supplied the framework for a series of urban projects in the years
1938-1949, under which 1149 buildings were demolished (Tekeli, 1991;
Akbulut,1994; Suher, 1994).

The general election in 1950 brought a radical shift in economic policy and the
geography of development, and was a pivotal moment in the urbanization
process. The CHP, which lost the election, was the political grouping that
expressed the modernist bureaucrats and politicians of military background,
whose mission had been to lay the foundations for a modern society and
regionally balanced economic development with strong state intervention. The
Democratic Party (DP) that rose to power, however, pursued a liberal economic
policy, a geographically unbalanced scheme of investments favoring developed
regions and the larger cities, and a foreign trade policy based on Turkey’s
comparative advantage in agricultural goods. There was a radical change in
transportation policy as well; railroad construction stopped, the goal of creating a
national railway network was totally abandoned, and the government focused on

68
building channels to connect the inner areas with the harbors. As a
consequence, the agricultural surplus, industrial and commercial investments
and migrants, who were driven by the poverty and unemployment in rural areas,
were all attracted to the two major cities, Istanbul and Izmir. In 1950, the
population of Istanbul was 1,002,085 and migrants constituted 35% of it. Just ten
years later, the population had increased by 50%, to 1,506,040; twenty years
later, in 1970, the urban population had doubled 2,203,337, and in 1975, 55% of
the city’s inhabitants were migrants (Yurt, 1985). Local authorities were
unprepared for this influx of rural migrants, and there was an urgent need for an
appropriate housing policy and planning instruments to overcome the
unexpected housing shortage. Thus, migrants whose saving patterns were
mostly incompatible with the conditions of the formal market, sought informal
solutions to their housing problems by building simple shelters on ‘vacant’
government property. The location was determined by the weakness of official
control on land, accessibility of industries and the main transportation axes. This
squatter housing was called gecekondu indicating the fact that they were built
overnight. Later on, the term signified low quality or unauthorized settlements in
general.

Between 1955-1960, Istanbul was shaped by means of piecemeal planning. After

1960, a regional plan and several master plans were drawn up for Istanbul.
However, these plans were disregarded or ineffective in later years, either due to
internal political conflicts or because the plans were inadequate to deal with real
life situations in the city. During the 1960s and 1970s, the city kept growing
towards the east and west; secondary business centres emerged; and housing
and industrial activities continued to encroach on unsettled, rural land on the
periphery. Most construction was spontaneous, unauthorized and in the form of
occupation of a vacant site without the consent of the landowner. The building of
the Bosphorus Bridge in 1973 strongly affected the direction and nature of urban
growth in Istanbul: The bridge and its feeder roads increased the accessibility of
the Levent-Maslak axis (the new central business district in the north) from the

69
suburbs, and of the rural and forest areas in the north. Consequently, the land-
use pattern changed; new sub-centres were established in old residential
districts, upper-class suburban settlements and informal lower-class
developments emerged in environmentally sensitive areas. Growing urban
pressure on urban land was reflected in conflicting situations which caused
numerous revisions in the regulations and plans for the city as a whole and for
the Bosphorus in particular: In 1973, The Law of Historic Monuments was
enacted; in 1975, the Bosphorus was designated a heritage site to be preserved;
in 1976, master plan studies for the metropolitan area were completed but the
proposals they contained were rejected by the government. New teams carried
out further studies for a new master plan that was implemented in 1980. In 1983,
the Bureau of Master Plan Studies was dissolved, and the local government
began to carry out controversial urban projects. In 1990, studies for a new master
plan were initiated. The plan was completed in 1994 (Tekeli, 1994; Suher, 1998;
Cubuk, 1998).

The vision of a multicultural global centre where the East and the West meet and
interact in a contemporary sense has been on the agenda of local governments
in Istanbul for several decades. The urge to transform Istanbul into a competitive
centre of global standards and the growing pressure of economic activities on
urban space confront the city with several threats. The focal point and degree of
these threats change with respect to the differences in modes of urban
development and the nature of prevailing urban functions. On the one hand, the
natural environment is endangered in several ways (Map 1):
• Obstruction of natural air flow: The air flow in the city is being
obstructed by increasing constructions in the valleys that function as
natural channels of air.
• Pollution: Water resources are being heavily polluted by increased
residential functions and by the growing number of industrial plants in
water basins.

70
• Loss of green space: Forest areas in the north are endangered by
growing urban sprawl in the form of the informal housing of lower income
groups on the urban fringe, and the gated communities of upper income
groups in the forests.
On the other hand, there are several threats to the built environment and
urban culture such as:
• High-density developments incompatible with the existing urban
fabric: In planned areas with high economic potential and intensifying
metropolitan functions, the number of high-rise buildings, office towers and
upper-class residential towers overwhelm the inherited urban fabric and
the unique silhouette of the city.
1. Poor building quality: In the past, some of the neighborhoods that
were developed through informal and/or illegal processes were
rehabilitated or simply legalized in their prevailing conditions by a series of
amnesty laws. Still others are being built without authorization. The major
problem in previously unplanned and currently illegal areas is that they are
the poorest and most disaster-prone areas, with low quality buildings.
Some of them are located in the city centre and are under the pressure of
the central business district (CBD); others are in the water basins on the
urban fringe, threatening the environment.
2. Inadequate land use, physical deterioration and social decay: The
Historic Peninsula is considered to be a high-risk area with the highest
priority for intervention because the deteriorating building stock in the
peninsula (the old city) is threatened by two urban trends: (a) Although the
offices of international services and finance moved to the new CBD in the
north, traditional and/or informal business networks and small-scale
manufacturing remained in the historic CBD on the south bank of the
Golden Horn. There is intense economic activity in that area. Some of
these manufacturing activities are hazardous because of the strong
vibrations of their machinery or polluting effects of the chemicals they use.
(b) Old districts are losing population due to the declining residential

71
 function. Nevertheless, some historic neighborhoods have been infiltrated
by the poorest migrants. They lack the resources to make any
improvement on the buildings or environment. Therefore, human lives as
well as the urban heritage are considered to be at risk in these
neighborhoods.

The great distruction caused by the earthquake in 1999 obliged the local
authority in Istanbul to see the city in a different perspective. The Municipality of
Greater Istanbul commissioned two teams of planners from four universities to
prepare a master plan to mitigate the earthquake hazard (SPDMI). The primary
goal of the SPDMI was to diminish the hazardous effects of a possible
earthquake in Istanbul, which was supported by a secondary goal of improving
the quality of the natural and urban environment. The team from the Yildiz
Technical University and the Bosphorus University indicated the above
mentioned threats and emphasized the need for a new planning approach. This
approach should have a regional perspective, reconcile heritage with growth and
development, and be supported by comprehensive institutional restructuring
because of the uncontrolled urban growth that threatens vital resources of urban
life in the periphery of the metropolitan area. The authors pointed out the
immense size of the metropolis. Urban functions serving 11,280,200 people
stretch out in a 200-km long east-west belt between the Black Sea in the north
and the Sea of Marmara in the south. The boundaries of this belt are beyond the
official territory of the Greater Istanbul Municipality, cover the entire Istanbul
province and even encroach upon neighboring provinces. “This fact requires a
special regional plan for the ‘metropolitan region’ of Istanbul. Any local plan in
Istanbul, whether or not prepared specifically for hazard abatement, should be
developed in accordance with the overall strategies set at regional scale...”
(SPDMI, 2003). (Map 1) The SPDMI was completed in 2003. Currently, a
strategic plan is being prepared for Istanbul.

72
REFERENCES

Yurt Ansiklopedisi [The Encyclopedia of the Country] (1982-1983), Vol. 6, pp.

3981-4038, Istanbul: Anadolu Yayincilik.
Akbulut, R. (1994), “Henri Prost”, in Dunden Bugune Istanbul Ansiklopedisi [The
Encyclopedia of Istanbul - From Yesterday to the Present], Vol. VI, pp. 285-
286, Istanbul: Turkiye Ekonomik ve Toplumsal Tarih Vakfi.
Boratav, K. (1995), Istanbul ve Anadolu’dan Sinif Profilleri [Profiles of Social
Classes in Istanbul and Anatolia], Istanbul: Tarih Vakfi Yurt Yayinlari.
Bozdogan, S. (1998), “Turk Mimari Kulturunde Modernism: Genel Bir Bakis”
[Modernism in the Turkish Architectural Culture: An Overview], in Turkiye’de
Modernlesme ve Ulusal Kimlik [Modernisation and National Identity in
Turkey], Istanbul: Tarih Vakfi Yurt Yayinlari, pp. 118-135.
Celik, Z. (1996) 19, Yuzyilda Osmanli Baskenti. Degisen Istanbul (Original name
of the publication in 1986: Istanbul: The Remaking of Istanbul. Portrait of an
Ottoman City in the Nineteenth Century), Istanbul: Tarih Vakfi Yurt
Yayinlari.
Cubuk, M. (1994), “Bogazici” [The Bosphorus], in Dunden Bugune Istanbul
Ansiklopedisi, Vol. II, pp. 266-281, Istanbul: Turkiye Ekonomik ve
Toplumsal Tarih Vakfi.
Eldem, E. (1992), Galata’nin Etnik Yapisi [The Ethnic Structure of Galata],
Istanbul], 1992/1, pp. 58-63.
http://www.ibb.gov.tr/IBB/DocLib/pdf/stratejikplan/stratejikplan2.pdf 04.09.2006,
ISP 2007-2011, Istanbul: IBB, 2006.
Keles, R. (1988), Urban Poverty in the Third World: Theoretical Approaches and
Policy Options (With Special Reference to the Middle East), Tokyo: IDE.
Ortayli, I. (2004), “Istanbul’da Yerlesme Duzeninin Evrimi Uzerine” [About the
Evolution of the Urban in Istanbul], in Ortayli, I. (2004) Istanbul’dan T.
(1980), The Politics of Dependency Sayfalar [Pages from Istanbul], Istanbul:
Iletisim Yayinlari, pp. 224-245.
Rosenthal, S., Urban Reform in Istanbul, London: Greenwood Press.

73
Suher, H. (1994), “Planlama” [Planning], in Dunden Bugune Istanbul
Ansiklopedisi, Vol. VI, pp. 265 - 275, Istanbul: Turkiye Ekonomik ve
Toplumsal Tarih Vakfi.
Tapan, M. (1998), “Istanbul’un Kentsel Planlamasinin Tarihsel Gelisimi ve
Planlama Eylemleri” [Historical Development of Urban Planning and Urban
Operations in Istanbul], in 75 Yilda Degisen Kent ve Mimarlik [75 Years of
Changes in the City and the Architecture], Istanbul: Tarih Vakfi Yayinlari.
Tekeli, I. (1991), Kent Planlamasi Konusmalari [Lectures on City Planning],
Ankara: TMMOB Mimarlar Odasi Yayini.
Tekeli, I. (1996) 19, “Yuzyilda Istanbul Metropoliten Alaninin Donusumu” [The
Transformation of the Metropolitan Area of Istanbul in the 19th Century], in
Dumont, P. & Georgeon, F. (eds), Modernlesme Surecinde Osmanli
Kentleri [Ottoman Cities in the Course of Modernisation], Istanbul: Tarih Vakfi
Yurt Yayinlari, pp.19-20.
Tekeli, I. (1998), “Bir Modernlesme Projesi Olarak Turkiye’de Kent Planlamasi”
[City Planning as a Modernisation Project in Turkey], in Turkiye’de
Modernlesme ve Ulusal Kimlik, Istanbul: Tarih Vakfi Yurt Yayinlari, pp. 136-
152.
Tekeli, I. (1994), The Development of the Istanbul Metropolitan Area: Urban
Administration and Planning, Istanbul: IULA-EMME.
Yenen, Z., Dincer, I. and Sengezer, B. (1995), “Spatial Studies on Historical
Peninsula Related to Central Activities”, Pre-Habitat II “Istanbul Workshop,
Vol. I, pp. 104-127, Istanbul: YTU.
Yerasimos, S. (1996), “Tanzimat’in Kent Reformlari Uzerine” [About the Urban
Reforms in the Tanzimat], Dumont & Georgeon (eds) Modernlesme
Surecinde Osmanli Kentleri, Istanbul: Tarih Vakfi Yurt Yayinlari, p. 1- 18.
YTU-DCRP (1996), Planning for Sustainable Heterogeneity. The Historic Istanbul
Peninsula, Istanbul: Yildiz Technical University, Department of City and
Regional Planning (YTU-DCRP).

74
75
The town planning of Athens during the 19th
and early 20th centuries: A general outline
by Emmanuel Marmaras

After 31 March 1833, when the town of Athens was officially handed over to the
Bavarian army by Osman Efendi, head of the Ottoman garrison, and especially
after 29 June 1833, when Athens was finally designated capital of the newly
established state, newcomers began to pour into the town to settle there, and the
site gradually acquired the characteristics of an urban community. At that time
Athens was small in area, covering only 77.2 hectares of the total of 116.3
hectares that were enclosed within the city walls (Biris, 1933: 4; 1966:10).

The Kleanthis-Schaubert plan for Athens

Among the first to have conceived the idea of Athens as the future capital of
Greece were two young architects, Stamatios Kleanthis and Eduard Schaubert.
In May 1832 they were commissioned by the provisional government of the time
to work out a plan for “the new Athens, bearing in mind the splendor and the
beauty of the Ancients” (Biris, 1933: 22-3). At the end of the same year, they
submitted their proposal for a new Athens. The inspiration for the Kleanthis-
Schaubert plan was derived from the prevalent morphological tendency of the
time, known as Romantic Classicism, which generally favoured the revival of the
spirit of classical Greek antiquity. The unifying concept was a right-angled
isosceles triangle formed by the present-day Ermou, Pireos and Stadiou streets.
These streets at the same time led to what were then the main exits from the
town. In the position of the line bisecting the triangle from its apex, the present-
day Omonia Square, it had placed Athinas Street in such a way that its vista
would end in the sacred rock of the Acropolis (Biris, 1933: 11).

In the Kleanthis-Schaubert scheme, there were to have been open spaces at the
three corners of the triangle, along with the important public buildings of the new

76
capital. Specifically, it was envisaged that the city’s administrative centre would
be built around the apex of the imaginary triangle at Omonia Square, and that,
most importantly, this would be the site for the new palace. At the same time, at
the other two corners of the triangle, in the Kerameikos district and in the present
Syntagma Square respectively, (a) Kekropos Square and (b) the town’s cultural
centre, consisting of the Cathedral, the Academy and the Library, were to have
been situated. Kekropos Square, however, was never completed owing to the
discovery under the site of the ancient Kerameikos cemetery.

The Kleanthis-Schaubert town plan covered an area of 289 hectares, 57.1

hectares of which were given over to squares and parks (Biris, 1966: 30). The
area covered by streets represented 18% of the aggregate area of the town
(Biris, 1933: 12). The projected total population of the new capital was set at
between 35 and 40 thousand inhabitants (Biris, 1966: 30).

Initially, the Athenians’ attitude to these town-planning developments was one of

enthusiastic acceptance. The plan gained official approval with some minor
modifications and immediately afterwards began to be implemented with the
construction of the projected streets. It was only then that the residents of the old
town realized that the opening up of new streets would entail extensive
demolition of buildings that were part of the urban fabric of the existing town. This
led to intense opposition from the residents of the old town and to generalized
unrest among the total population of Athens.

The Klenze plan for Athens

In revising the initial town plan, assistance was sought from Ludwig of Bavaria,
father of Otto, the Greek king. Ludwig sent his trusted architect Leo von Klenze
to find solutions to the problems that had arisen. He drew up a plan that was
approved by the decree of 18 September 1834.

Klenze’s plan retained the basic morphological characteristics of the previous

77
Kleanthis-Schaubert plan, but proposed changes, first in the dimensions of the
open areas, secondly in the positioning of the public buildings within the overall
layout, and thirdly in the extent of the area covered by the official town plan.
Klenze’s first intervention was to reduce the width of the streets, the size of the
public squares, and the area of the archaeological zone. Thus, he contributed to
establishing a denser urban fabric, instead of the relatively spacious town that
would have resulted from the Kleanthis-Schaubert plan. The second intervention
led to modifications of the functional nature of the initial town plan. The changes
included: transferring the cathedral to the site of present-day Omonia Square,
renamed Otto Square; moving the administrative centre to the site of Kekropos
Square in the Kleanthis-Schaubert plan, and shifting the cultural centre to half-
way along Panepistimiou Street, to approximately the same location as the
present-day “trilogy” of the Academy, the University and the Library. Klenze’s
third intervention drastically curtailed the total area of the town’s official plan,
which was finally set at 220.4 hectares (Biris, 1966: 318), instead of the 289
hectares of the initial Kleanthis-Schaubert plan.

In the meantime people from different parts of the Greek countryside, as well as
Greeks from abroad, began to arrive in Athens in order to make their homes
there. During the same period, civil authorities and military garrisons established
themselves in the fledgling capital. Initially the situation was chaotic owing to the
absence of accommodation for either the new administrative services or the new
inhabitants. The government was forced to resort to stern measures to bring the
situation under control.

King Otto arrived in town on 1st December 1834. The question of finding the most
appropriate site for the palace gave rise to a series of new amendments to the
town plan. The engineer Hoch was commissioned to carry out these changes.
The result of his endeavour was the creation of the thoroughfares Panepistimiou
Street and Amalias Avenue, alterations to Syntagma Square and the general
layout of the town in the area of Filellinon Street. Hoch’s plan was approved by

78
Otto on 28 May 1837 (Biris, 1933: 31-2). In addition to Hoch’s amendments, the
government proceeded to make changes in that part of the town that had been
designated archaeological. In 1843, the plan of Athens was a combination of the
pre-existing old town and the attempts of the new state to create a contemporary
European city.

The first infrastructure works in Athens

Regarding infrastructure works, the first actions were taken in 1834. In July,
Schaubert was commissioned to open and clean one of the old town sewers. In
1834 it was likewise decided that Hadrian’s aqueduct, which had suffered severe
damage in the past, should be cleaned and repaired so as to improve the water
supply to the capital (Biris, 1933: 29). Furthermore, the presence of Queen
Amalia was associated with initiatives for the purpose of expanding and
improving the town’s parklands and green space. One notable result of her
endeavors was the creation of the National (at that time Royal) Gardens
adjoining the palace grounds (fig. 17). Planting got under way in 1840, initially on
a small scale, and over the decade that followed the Gardens assumed their
present form and dimensions (Biris, 1964: 103).

In 1869, the Athens-Piraeus railway went into operation (Biris, 1964: 163). Later,
in 1880, the government ceded to the Belgian company Laminoirs, Forges et
Fonderies de Jemmapes, Victor Demerbe et Cie the right to install and operate a
network of horse-drawn trams in central Athens, and a steam-powered tramway
line to the coastal area of Faliro departed from Panepistimiou Street in front of
the Academy building (Biris, 1964: 195). Finally, in 1889, the electrification of
Athens got under way. It was then that the license to generate and supply
electricity was awarded by the government to the General Contracting Company.
In this early phase in the electrification of the Greek capital, the distribution
network was limited to an area bounded by Panepistimiou, Sofokleous, Athinas
and Ermou streets (Biris, 1964: 193-4).

79
Town planning developments to the end of the nineteenth century

In the years that followed, until the end of the century, no significant urban
planning initiatives were taken in relation to the Athens town plan, nor were there
any real changes in the way the town was organized. The interventions that were
promoted were mainly small-scale local actions of a corrective nature and
extensions of the official town plan. Included in the first category of small-scale
local interventions were the street plan of 1864-65 drawn up by the Army
Engineering Directorate and the 1896-98 proposal by the architect Pavlos Vakas.
As for the second category, i.e. the extension of the plan to the edges of the city,
this was done on a massive scale and was in fact the chief urban planning
practice in Athens. One consequence of this was that the official town plan of
Athens expanded in the 1880s by 659.1 hectares and in the 1890s by 382.2
hectares. In the 1880s, large areas in Kallithea (98 hectares), Pagrati (93.1
hectares) and Kypseli (101.9 hectares) were incorporated into the plan as well
areas in Ambelokipi (56.2 hectares), Kolonos (125.3 hectares) and Ilissia (67.6
hectares) in the 1890s (Biris, 1964: 318).

The construction industry in the nineteenth century

The phase of organizing the town plan of Athens as national capital was
succeeded by a period of booming construction and architectural change. The
fact that Otto took up residence in Athens made a decisive contribution to this
process, since his presence attracted newcomers to the capital. The resulting
increase in demand for accommodation led to the overvaluation of urban land
and a wave of general land speculation.

Reconstruction was more vigorous in the neighborhood of the old town, both in
the narrow lanes that were preserved and in the wider new streets that were
built. Outside the old town there was at first little reconstruction and the newly-
built houses that sprang up there appeared remote and isolated (Biris, 1933: 27).
One consequence of the reconstruction of the town was the quarrying of the hills

80
in the Athens basin, resulting in the alteration and even disappearance of some
of them. Specifically, in August 1935 quarrying started on the northern slope of
the Hill of the Nymphs, on the Thissio side (Biris, 1964: 70-2).

The new suburbs began essentially coming into being late in the nineteenth
century. Specifically, urban construction started in the town centre in the area
around Omonia Square and Haftia, while the region around Syntagma Square
was developed in the last two decades of the nineteenth century. It is worth
noting that during the 1880s and 1890s, an unprecedented wave of commercial
apartment building made its appearance in the Exarchia district (Biris, 1987: 9-
14) and more generally in the northeastern part of the town, in the district of
Neapoli. The construction of these buildings met the demand arising from the
arrival of Greeks from Egypt (Biris, 1964: 198).

The first town planning developments in the twentieth century

If we take into account the historical circumstances at the beginning of the

twentieth century in the Balkan Peninsula, it should not be considered in any way
surprising that the first half of it was particularly critical for urban developments in
Athens. Despite the attempts of the previous years, Athens at the dawn of the
twentieth century was suffering from the absence of basic infrastructure works.
The roads were in a deplorable state as most of them were gravel. Only a few
main streets were paved. At the same time the population suffered from a
chronic lack of water, while the lack of a sewerage system, in conjunction with
the very limited extent of street lighting, inadequate public transport connections
between the centre and the outlying districts, and the virtual non-existence of a
proper urban green belt suggest the dimensions of the capital’s shortcomings in
terms of basic utilities and services (Manoudi, 1985: 47).

Nevertheless, the advent of the twentieth century was accompanied by the

introduction of a plethora of innovations into the daily life of the average Greek,
and brought him closer to the Western standard of living. The first automobile

81
was put on the road as early as 1896. In 1902 an electric power-generating
station commenced operations at Neo Faliro, capable not only of serving the
power requirements of Athens and Piraeus but also of meeting the demands of
industry and public transport. As a result, in 1903 the Athens-Piraeus railway,
until then steam-powered, was electrified and from 1910 on, Omonia and
Syntagma squares as well as Panepistimiou, Amalias, Pireos and Ayiou
Konstantinou streets acquired electric street lighting. Finally, 1905 saw the first
asphalt paving of a street in Athens, Aiolou Street (Biris, 1964: 250-3).

Regarding extensions of the town plan, suffice it to say that those approved in
the first decade of the twentieth century represented about 30% of the area
covered by the town plan hitherto in force. Nevertheless, the decade after 1910
saw the capital becoming the object of new planning policies. In contrast to the
recent past, the attempted modernisation of the town was systematic and
dynamic. On the one hand, unprogrammed extensions of the town plan virtually
ceased. At the same time a scheme began to take shape for drawing up a
master plan for the capital as a unified whole, not broken up into smaller urban
formations. Chronologically it was preceded by the urban planning schemes of
the German Ludwig Hoffmann and the Englishman Thomas Mawson, and
followed by the proposals of the Greeks Aristides Balanos, Stylianos Leloudas
and Petros Kalligas.

In his plan for Athens, Hoffmann’s conception was inspired by the eclectic
Wilhelmist style of urban planning and attached great importance to the flow of
traffic and to upgrading the town architecturally (Schmidt, 1980: 50-6). As
regards the former issue, Hoffmann proposed the construction of a ring road to
supplement the roads that already radiated out from the centre. As for the latter,
Hoffmann proposed a series of decorative architectural interventions in the city
blocks that would result from his traffic measures, in such a way that the capital
would acquire the desired visual profile (Polyzos, 1985: 37-8). The Hoffmann
scheme was never implemented, probably because of intense objections to it by

82
segments of the bureaucracy (Paraskevopoulos, 1932: 177).

Mawson submitted two plans for Athens. His final plan was presented in the form
of an exhibition at Zappeion Exhibition Hall on 17 February 1918. The chief
points were the following proposals (Marmaras, 1977: 272):
• Concentration of similar town functions in particular areas;
• Construction of housing estates for workers;
• Environmental upgrading of the area around the Acropolis;
• Measures for dealing with traffic problems, such as the extension of Korai
Street as far as Monastiraki Square; and
• Creation of an economic body to implement and manage the proposals.

The proposals of Greek town planners, which came chronologically later than
those of the non-Greeks, were clearly closer to the real problems faced by
Athens and to the country’s economic potential. In July 1917, Balanos proposed
that the official town plan be extended to the districts of Kolonos, Sepolia,
Kolokynthou and the Iera Odos. In the designs he drew up to illustrate his
proposal, he had shown a clear preference for planning that aspired to realization
of the “garden city idea”, systematically avoiding rectangular street grids and
including generous areas of parkland (Balanos, 1917). In March 1918 and again
in July 1921, Leloudas published proposals that covered the entire Athens basin.
In other words, he dealt for the first time with the Athens-Piraeus axis and the
surrounding neighborhoods as a uniform planning entity, a fact that made his
views particularly innovative (Leloudas, 1918). Finally, in 1918 Kalligas submitted
his own Plan for Athens (Kalligas, 1919).

The Asia Minor disaster and the town planning consequences in Athens

The “reformist” atmosphere of the decade after 1910 was succeeded by the grim
reality of the 1920s, a decade marked for Greece by the influx of some 1.5 million
refugees from Asia Minor. The need to provide immediate accommodation for
them led to radical alterations of the town planning policies that had been drawn

83
up just a few years earlier. In the new version, priority was given to dealing with
immediate housing needs, at the expense of medium and long-term planning
models. Indicative of this reality is the fact that in the entire interwar period only
two new urban planning proposals were formulated for Athens. One was that of
Petros Kalligas in 1924, the second was that of the General Directorate of
Technical Services of the Athens Municipality in 1935. Also submitted, in report
form, were two studies, the first in 1928 by Spilios Agapitos entitled The City, and
the second by Stylianos Leloudas entitled Greater Athens.

Moreover, in 1924, the year the Refugee Rehabilitation Committee (Epitropi

Apokatastaseos Prosfygon-EAP) was established, it was decided that refugee
settlements should be constructed on the outskirts of the town, in the vicinity of
the capital’s industrial zone. Between 1925 and 1930, 11,870 accommodation
units were built by the EAP in the Athens region (Vassiliou, 1944: 301).

At the same time, there was a marked reversion to the previous policies of
extending the town plan. By 1930, the existing officially-approved Athens town
plan for 1922 had been expanded by 729.1 hectares, i.e. 33.5%. It is worth
noting that a significant proportion of the extensions to the Athens town plan in
the two interwar decades followed the model of the “garden city” planning
concept in morphological terms. Typical examples of this are the suburbs of
Psychiko (designed by Alexandros Nicoloudis in 1923), Ekali (designed by
Spilios Agapitos in 1924) (fig. 33) Nea Kifissia (1925), Ilioupolis (designed by A.
Valvis in 1925) (fig. 34), Voula (1926), Holargos (1928), Filothei (1931) and
Koufou, near Penteli (1933) (Kafkoula, 1990: 188-220 & 232-49).

Infrastructure works in Athens during the interwar period

However, the sector that saw the most significant progress in the capital was that
of infrastructure works. Attention was focused on the perennial issues of water
supply and sewerage, provision of telephone services, road-building, public
transport and the development of urban parklands; and progress was made on

84
all these fronts. These problems were, for the most part, resolved by large-scale
economic and technical contracts with foreign companies that were drawn up in
the years between 1924 and 1930.

One of the first, signed in April 1925, was a contract between the Greek state
and the Bank of Athens, in collaboration with the Athens water supply company,
to proceed with the relevant water supply works. In October 1926 construction
began on the dam at Haradro near Marathon. Three years later this project was
completed (Biris, 1964: 304).

In October 1925, the Pangalos government signed a contract with a group of

Greek bankers who collaborated with the English firm Power and Traction
Finance Company to deal with problems of electricity and transport. The duration
of the contract was for sixty years. At the same time subsidiaries of Power and
Traction were established under the names Hellenic Electric Railways Co. Ltd.
(EIS) and the Electric Transportation Company (IEM), the former of which
acquired the exclusive right to operate the Athens-Piraeus electric railway, and
the latter to establish and operate a network of up to fifteen kilometers longer
than the existing one, i.e. to build and operate an electric railway from Omonia
Square to Kifissia, and to run new urban bus lines (Biris, 1964: 301).

In October 1930, two contracts were signed with the German company Siemens
& Halske. The first covered telephone communications within the town and
suburbs, and the second telephone links with the provinces by means of an
automatic telephone exchange (Biris, 1964: 303-4).

Apart from these infrastructure works, important initiatives were undertaken in

relation to providing the town with more parkland and green space. The
establishment in 1927 of the Committee for Public Gardens and Trees made a
decisive contribution to achieving this objective. Its activities were centred on the
landscaping of the Pedio tou Areos as a park. In 1934 the government took steps

85
through the Ministry of Transport to secure funding for the creation of the park,
and at the same time approved a proposal, to be implemented immediately, for
planting trees on the basis of a plan that had already been drawn up
(Dimitrakopoulos, 1935: 428-50). In the meantime in 1928, following an
architectural competition in which the first prize was won by the architect
Emmanuel Lazaridis, work started on landscaping the area around the Tomb of
the Unknown Soldier adjoining Syntagma Square.

Developments in the housing sector during the interwar period

The great increase in the rate at which new housing was being constructed in
Greece, and particularly in Athens, was obviously a natural consequence of the
population movements occurring in Greece and especially in Athens. Examining
the geographical distribution of the new building sites in the Athens conurbation
during the first decades of the twentieth century, we can see that, if we draw an
imaginary line dividing the town from north to south along Patission Street,
development was more intense in the western districts. At the same time,
however, construction was seen in three places in the eastern part, in the regions
of Kypseli, Alexandras Avenue and the Panathenean Stadium. By contrast,
construction work in the town’s older quarters, such as around the ancient Agora,
the Cathedral district, and Ayioi Theodoroi, remained low (Marmaras, 1989: 404-
11).

The growing demand for housing in the town’s western districts largely vindicated
the planning conceptions of Balanos and Leloudas who, as indicated, proposed
the prompt elaboration of a town plan, the former for the western neighborhoods
of Kolonos, Sepolia, Kolokynthou and the Iera Odos, the latter for the entire
Athens basin taken as an integrated geographical unit (Marmaras, 1997: 273-5).

The clear shift in favour of developing an official housing policy for Athens, owing
obviously to the refugee issue, but also to the more general trend towards urban
living that was being observed, resulted in a series of measures that favoured

86
private residential development. A number of new decrees were issued
regulating the height of buildings. The first was issued in 1919, implementing a
law that had been promulgated in 1917. New regulations followed, culminating in
those that were in included in the first General Building Regulations of 1929, and
the 1934 decree applying specifically to Athens. In accordance with these latter
developments, the town began to be subdivided into sectors, with a different
maximum permissible building height in the southeastern and northern outskirts
of the town: on the southeastern edge of Athens, the districts of Koili, Alopeki,
Kynosarges, Ardittos and Hymettos, on the northern edge the district of
Ptochokomeio, and on the western edge the district of Kolonos. At the same
time, intensive building activity made its appearance in the northern suburbs of
Psychiko, Halandri and Filothei, and in the southern suburbs of Nea Smyrni,
Kallithea and Paleo Faliro (Research Project, 1995: 120-1).

Epilogue

The work carried out in Athens from the time it was chosen as capital of the
modern Greek state until the end of the nineteenth century could justly be
characterized as colossal. In fact, a new town was created on the ruins of the
glorious Athens of classical antiquity and on the debris of a small market town
with many features of the Levant. Furthermore, town planning and housing
developments in Athens from the early twentieth century to the outbreak of the
Second World War made a decisive contribution to changing the image of Athens
and paving the way for the town to develop its postwar profile.

Criticism of the type of town that has emerged, and clearly it is not the best that
might have been hoped for, should be focused primarily on the town planning
rather than the architectural level. In particular it should be attributed to the
inability of the state to impose regulations on landowners for the sound planning,
organization and construction of urban real estate.

The above-mentioned inability has its roots in the initial phase of planning for the

87
new Athens. Nevertheless, it was further aggravated after the Asia Minor
disaster, when the austerity that characterized state finances approached
penury, culminating in bankruptcy in 1932.

In the final analysis, any objective account of developments in the Athens urban
complex would have to include, in addition to the conditions that prevailed in the
first half of the twentieth century, the town’s unpredictable growth in the postwar
period, when the phenomenon of urbanization outstripped all capacity to make
reasonable provision for it, and large-scale growth brought about conditions that
defied all efforts at control.

Bibliography

Balanos Aristides (1917), Study for an Athens Town Plan, Section of the districts
Kolonos, Sepolia, Kolokynthou, Iera Odos, Athens: Estia (in Greek).
Biris, Kostas (1933), The first plans of Athens, Athens: Taroussopoulos (in
Greek).
Biris, Kostas (1964), Athens from the 19th to the 20th century, Athens: Foundation
for Athenian History and Town Planning (in Greek).
Biris, Manos (1987), Half century of Athenian Architecture, 1875-1925, Athens (in
Greek).
Dimitrakopoulos, Anargyros (1935), “The Pedion tou Areos Park”, Technika
Chronika, pp. 428-50 (in Greek).
Kafkoula, Kiki (1990), The idea of the Garden City in Interwar Greek Town
Planning, Thessaloniki: Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki (in Greek).
Kalligas, Petros (1919), Plan of Athens, Athens (in Greek).
Leloudas, Stylianos (1918), Athens-Piraeus, Study of a new plan for the town of
Athens and environs, Athens (in Greek).
Manoudi, Maria (1986), “The Hoffmann and Mawson proposals and the Athens
Press” in Ministry of Culture, Athens in the 20th century, 1900-1940:
Athens, Greek Capital, pp. 47-54 (in Greek).
Marmaras, Emmanuel (1989), “Town planning in Athens in the 1910-1921

88
 period”, Ta Istorika, vol. 6, no 11, pp. 395- 411 (in Greek).
Marmaras, Emmanuel (1991), The urban apartment building in interwarAthens:
The beginning of the intensive exploitation of urban land, Athens: PTI,
Greek Industrial Development Bank (in Greek).
Marmaras, Emmanuel (1997), “Athens 1910-1940, Notes on architectural and
town planning”, in the Vouros-Eftaxias Foundation - Museum of the City of
Athens, Architecture and town planning from antiquity to today, The case
of Athens, Athens: Arsenidis, pp. 269-281 (in Greek).
Paraskevopoulos, G. (1932), Sunrays and clouds: Fifty years of memories, 1882-
1932, Athens (in Greek).
Polyzos, Giannis (1986), “Reformers’ dreams and planning reforms”, in Ministry
of Culture, Athens in the 20th century, 1900-1940: Athens, Greek Capital,
pp. 36-46 (in Greek).
Research Work 89 ED 163 (1995), Housing in Athens in the 1930s, Athens:
Ministry of Industry, Energy and Technology, General Secretariat of
Research and Technology (in Greek).
Schmidt, H. (1980), “Wilhelmine Athens, Ludwig Hoffmann’s town plan for
Athens”, in Themata Horou kai Technon, no 11, pp. 50-56 (in Greek).
Vassiliou, Ioannis (1944), Housing the people, Athens (in Greek).

89
The role and work of architects in Athens
in the second half of the 20th century: a brief outline
by Helen Fessas – Emmanouil

Foreword

On the threshold of the 21st century, the urban agglomeration of Greece’s capital
city bears little resemblance to the European-centred Athens of the interwar
years, with its quality modern architecture, its “garden” suburbs and its refugee
and squatter settlements (Leontidou, 1985: 79, Kafkoula, 1990). Apart from a few
remnants of its long, uninterrupted history, the present-day chaotic and
multicultural assembly of three-and-a-half million inhabitants in the Attica basin is
essentially a modern meta-city, which differs from both the historic cities of
Europe and the new, planned cities of the 20th century (Fessas-Emmanouil,
2001: 249, 399).

I will start by giving you some clues as to the particular features, influences and
central themes of modern Athenian architecture. One of the identifying features
of Greek architecture throughout the centuries has been its harmonious
relationship with nature. This harmony, which was lost after World War II,
expressed an age-long philosophy of building, which was rediscovered and
implemented by the architect Aris Konstantinidis in the outskirts of Athens and in
the countryside (Fessas-Emmanouil, 2001: 96-112).

Special features and influences

A striking characteristic of modern Athens is its high social mobility. The ensuing
loose social stratification, deeply rooted in history, was also the product of a
partly developed economy, an equalizing educational system and a non-affluent
state. Assimilative power, moderation and tolerance of diversity are also deeply
rooted features of the architectural culture of Athens. Indeed Athenian
architecture was always most truly itself when it recognized material limitations

90
and made the most of its strong capabilities. One is dealing with what Pericles in
the 5th century BC epitomized in his funeral oration: “Our love of what is beautiful
does not lead us to extravagance, nor does our love of the things of the mind
make us soft.” On the other hand, egoism and lack of discipline, which also
characterize the attitude of Greek architects, is no safe guide in our world of
distracting variety, uncertainty and frustration. (Fessas-Emmanouil, 1991: 7 and
1993: 107-108).

And now a few words about the role of architects and planners in 20th century
Greece, the dominant architectural trends and the most characteristic types of
buildings in Athens.

Architects and urban planners

The role played by urban planners and architects in the development of modern
Athens and in the design of its most important buildings has been marginal. This
marginalisation contributed to unbridled construction and to the aesthetic
downgrading of the urban landscape, even though Greece never lacked capable
urban planners or gifted architects (Travlos, 1960: 258; Michael, 1969: 101-138;
Burgel, 1981 & 1985: 74-76; Sarigiannis, 2000: 156-161).

One of the objectives of this presentation is to document the quality of the work
of some contemporary architects, which is often difficult to detect in the chaotic
Greek cityscape.

Trends

The dominant trend in postwar Greek architecture designed by architects, which

covers no more than 2% of the built environment, was an attempt to keep pace
with international trends, while seeking to adapt them to local conditions (Loyer,
1968: 22-28 ; Philippides, 1984: 397-403). At its best, this attempt resulted in a

91
creative assimilation of the prevalent trends in Europe and the US. At its worst,
we observe the inappropriate application of international stylistic codes (Fessas-
Emmanouil, 2001:146, 148).

Two specific features distinguish urban architecture in the Greek capital: the
weighty legacy of 19th-century Athenian neo-Classicism and the sentimental
attachment of its creators to the indigenous tradition.

Types of buildings

The buildings most characteristic of the Greek cityscape are apartment buildings
and suburban residential development. Their predominance resulted from the
particular conditions prevailing in the Greek city: small land holdings, limited state
resources, small-scale construction companies, and the vitality of the populace
(Fessas-Emmanouil, 2001: 256). The implementation of these two building types
would, on the one hand, quickly solve the acute problem of housing the city’s
inhabitants but, on the other, it would also have adverse effects, since it did not
take place within the proper regulatory framework, nor was it accompanied by the
requisite technical or social infrastructure (Philippides, 1978: 103-107; Tzakou
1978: 131-143).

The tourist facilities and single-family houses of the 1960s and the urban renewal
and restoration of historic buildings that took place in the period between 1975
and 2004 are, as we shall see, the most remarkable accomplishments of postwar
Athenian architecture. On the contrary, 20th century public buildings are its
weakest aspect (Fessas-Emmanouil, 1993: 107).

1950-1965. Renewal (1950-1957)

and the short-lived spring (1958 - 1965)
Post-war architecture started with a great delay in Greece, in comparison to other
European countries, due to the harsh experience of the Nazi occupation (1941-
1944) and the tragedy of the Civil War (1946-1949).

92
Greek architecture began being modernised during the second post-war phase of
international Modernism, when the Athens Charter was having to deal with the
rebellion of Team X and when the International Style that had prevailed up to that
time was giving way to two complex and highly form-dominated trends:
International Brutalism and Formalism, the latter of which manifested itself as
neo-historicism or neo-mannerism (Fessas-Emmanouil, 2001: 166).

It was in this context that the first and most important phase began in the post-
war architecture produced by Greek architects. In spite of its shortcomings, the
state played a pioneering role during those years. Low-cost housing designed by
the Workers Housing Organisation under Aris Konstantinidis (1955-1957)
(Konstantinidis, 1981: 64-78) and a number of important projects launched by the
planning department of the Ministry of Public Works directed by Prokopios
Vassiliadis were among the noteworthy accomplishments of architectural
modernisation in 20th-century Greece. It was to Vassiliadis that the revered
professor of architecture Dimitris Pikionis owed the commission for his
masterwork: the landscaping of the areas around the Acropolis with the group of
buildings including the church of St Demetrius Loumbardiaris and the café on
Philopappou Hill (1951-1957) (Fessas-Emmanouil, 1999: 19-20). This supreme
expression of critical regionalism in post-war Greece was an instance whose
picturesqueness, mystical allusion to nature and concern to express the
ecumenical and local spirit, has fascinated academics in Greece and abroad
(Dimitris Pikionis, 1989; Liapis, 1969: 90-95).

There was also a leap forward in the quality of work by Greek architects working
in the private sector over the twelve years from 1955 to 1967. The period
witnessed the rise of the first dynamic personalities capable of distinguishing
themselves on a global scale, the best known of whom are Constantinos
Doxiadis (1913-1975) and Georges Candilis (1913-1995), two internationally

93
acclaimed architects and town planners (Fessas-Emmanouil, 1997: 66-75; 1999:
20; Candilis, 1985.).

The 1950s and ‘60s also saw the emergence of Nicos Valsamakis (b. 1924) and
Takis Zenetos (1926-1977), two pioneering and high-calibre modernists.
Valsamakis always worked in parallel with mainstream international trends that
could be characterised as rational and idealistic (e.g. Miesian minimalism, neo-
cubist purism and neo-rationalism). His exceptional abilities and professional
perseverance allowed him to assimilate influences in his work as elements of
personal expression. Throughout a unique career lasting more than fifty years,
he has remained in the forefront of Greek architecture (Constantopoulos, 1984;
Philippides, 2000: 44-50). His work has also been extremely influential because
its pioneering modernity was never in conflict with the historical and aesthetic
aspects of its surroundings. The most important works by Valsamakis are among
the greatest stylistic achievements of Greek architecture of the ‘60s and, I
believe, stand comparison with projects by internationally recognized architects,
such as Arne Jacobsen of Denmark (Fessas-Emmanouil, 2001: 276). Takis
Zenetos, a solitary and charismatic visionary, moved in quite a different direction.
He strove with passion to implement pioneering goals that included the use of
prefabricated structures, flexibility, economy of energy and materials, and the use
of advanced technology. With his powerful talent and fertile imagination, Zenetos
succeeded in creating some impressive avant-garde projects of international
calibre: the utopian study of the electronic cities of the future (1952), the
detached houses at Kavouri (1959) and Nea Kifissia (1959) that were designed
in association with Margaritis Apostolidis, the Fix Brewery (1957), the open-air
theatre on Mount Lycabettus (1964) and the state secondary school of Ayios
Dimitrios (Takis Ch. Zenetos, 1978; 16, 17, 40, 41; Philippides 1984: 349, 351;
Fessas-Emmanouil, 2001: 165, 210-211, 274, 276 ).

This was a time when two international masters, Walter Gropius and Eero
Saarinen, and some distinguished Greek architects of the interwar period, in

94
collaboration with talented colleagues of the younger generation, created some
extremely influential works in Greece. One could mention by way of indication:
the Doxiadis office building, the Astir beach and resort in Glyfada by E.
Vourekas, P. Sakellarios and P. Vassiliadis (1955-1958), the US Embassy by
Gropius and TAC (1959-1961), the Athens East Airport Terminal by Saarinen
and his associates (1960), and the Athens Hilton by Vassiliadis, Vourekas,
Staikos and their collaborators (1958-1963) (Fessas-Emmanouil, 2001: 172, 177,
270 ; Kyrtsis, 2006: 424-429).

1966-1975. The decline of Modernism

The decade 1966-1975, which roughly coincides with the seven-year dictatorship
in Greece, appeared as a time of decline. The symptoms of decline were related
to international trends and local developments, such as the rise of the lower
middle-class strata, the serious problems confronting the architectural profession
and the educational system.

Brutalism, mannerism and “neo-expressionism” became the dominant styles of

architecture produced by the public sector (Fessas-Emmanouil, 1993: 111-114).

Some unconventional buildings of that period were designed by Alexandros

Tombazis (b. 1939) and his associates. One of them is the original Difros
apartment complex (1971-1972), indebted to both Japanese brutalism and
metabolism (Fessas-Emmanouil, 2001: 216, 218, 220).

Closely related to brutalism is the influential work of Atelier 66, founded by

Suzana and Dimitris Antonakakis (b. 1935 and 1933). It was during this same
period that they developed their critical and eclectic approach to architecture in
their collective practice. This approach combined the domestic legacy of Pikionis,
Le Corbusier’s poetry of beton brut, and influences from the work of regional
“dissenters”, such as Aldo van Eyck’s structuralism. The Antonakakis’ work is
characterised by a concern for place and a predilection for labyrinthine layouts

95
and highly configured interior spaces. Most of these characteristics are
exemplified in the Archaeological Museum of Chios (1969-1975, in collaboration
with H. Goussi-Desylla) and the apartment building on 118 Emmanouil Benaki St
(1972-75) (Frampton,1985: 42-51, 86-96).

The formalistic and neohistoric trends associated with imported high technology
were also represented. Their most fashionable and controversial products were
the commercial buildings designed by Ioannis Vikelas (b. 1931), who adopted a
classicising enrichment of Miesian modernism, and the international office block
type (Philippides, 1987: 158-175; Fessas-Emmanouil, 2001: 283-286).

From the 1980s to the Dionysian and chaotic eve of the 21st century

The demographic stability of Athens during the 1980s and 1990s and a number

of factors that reflected international trends brought about positive changes such

as the restoration of the historic city centre, urban renewal, and the renovation of

historic buildings. However, on the debit side was the mass exodus of large

numbers of Athenians that hastened anarchic urban sprawl and the

environmental decline of the Athens basin (Fessas-Emmanouil, 2001: 290).

Furthermore, the fashions of post-modernism and deconstruction discredited

Athenian architecture and aggravated its long-term weaknesses. The eclectic

logic, deconstructing or plagiarizing tactics, ephemeral goals, spurious

monumentality and pointless ingenuity of architectural tastemakers often led to

detaching content from form (Fessas-Emmanouil, 2001: 290).

Nicos Valsamakis and Alexandros Tombazis were two of the most productive
and influential architects of the 1980s and 1990s in Athens. Valsamakis became
a leading master of postmodernism and neo-modernism. All buildings designed

96
by him in these years where the outcome of a friendly dialogue with the cultural
and aesthetic aspects of their surroundings. His monumental Alpha Bank
headquarters building in Athens (1978-1985/1990) is a masterful blend of Italian
neo-rationalism and Athenian neo-classicism, while the hotels he designed in this
period revealed his creative ability to harmonize late-modern and postmodern
trends with indigenous traditions (Fessas-Emmanouil, 2001: 234-237;
Philippides, 2007, 262-263).

Tombazis’ work carries on his cosmopolitan interest in technology and

innovation, as well as his systematic approach to architecture, based on a
dialogue with the younger architects in his office. Being active both in Greece
and abroad, he produced works of great compositional and formal variety. His
most original designs of the ’80s and ’90s were those based on the use of solar
energy and on bioclimatic considerations, such as two of his office buildings in
Athens: his own (1991-1994) and the Avax S.A. contracting company building
(1992) (Tombazis, 2002: 38-43).

Gentle modernity, concern for heritage architecture and environmental sensibility

are the dominant features of the buildings designed or renovated by Vassilis
Sgoutas, who was very active in the 1990s as president and vice-president of
UIA .

Late modernism, either alone or combined with indigenous vernacular styles,

established itself as the prevailing trend in public architecture in the ’80s. Its
dominance was enhanced by the academics’ predilection for this trend. The most
influential of these academics were Dimitris Fatouros, a student of Pikionis and
professor of architecture at the Polytechnical School of the Aristotle University of
Thessaloniki, and architects Tassos and Dimitris Biris (b. 1942, 1944), who are
professors at the National Technical University of Athens. (Fatouros, 2001) The
Biris brothers and their collaborator Panos Kokoris (b. 1954) distinguished
themselves in numerous architectural competitions that were held for important

97
public sector projects. Their interest in originality and technology is exemplified in
their apartment building in Polydroso (1977-1980) and the City Hall – Cultural
Centre of Argyroupolis (1982-1988) (Fessas-Emmanouil, 2001: 244).

Kyriakos Krokos’ (1941-1998) sensitive and empirical approach to architecture

may be seen as an attempt to reinterpret the heritage of Pikionis in a personal,
neo-realistic way. Two of his most frequently published works are the Vettas
residence in Filothei (1989-1991) and the Museum of Byzantine Culture in
Thessaloniki (1978-1993) (Simeoforidis, 1989: 35-36; Krokos, 1989: 37-48).

The late-modern and neo-modern work by architects-professors Tassis

Papaioannou (b. 1953) and Dimitris Isaias (b. 1955) is also a product of
investigation and reflection. Their competition-winning designs and mature
projects stand out for their originality and economy of expressive means. Similar
reflections can be found in the quality architecture of established and younger
architects, a significant number of whom are women. I would mention
indicatively: (a) two original works by architect Michalis Souvatzidis (b. 1946) –
his apartment building (1985-1993) and the Eikastikos Kyklos Art Centre (1992-
1997) in Athens; (b) the Papadopoulos residence in Aghia Paraskevi, Attica, a
1992 project by professor-architect Giorgos Panetsos designed in a
deconstructive mood; (c) the neo-modern Samourka villa in P. Psychiko, Attica,
designed in 1992 by Zoe Samourka; (d) the late-modern Michaniki office complex
in Maroussi, a work by architects Andreas Kourkoulas and Maria Kokkinou; (e)
the deconstruction-style Emfietzoglou home in Anavryta (1991-1996), originally
designed around a curved corridor 200 m. long, with loosely articulated areas
and a great variety of volumes, a work by architects Katerina Diakomidou, Nikos
Haritos and Christos Papoulias; and (f) the office building in Nea Kifissia (1999-
2001), an impressive neo-modern design by architects Vassilis Baskozos and
Daria Tsangaraki (Aesopos and Simeoforidis, 1999: 84-89, 178-; Fessas-
Emmanouil, 2001: 308).

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Finally, there are also young architects who have been able to get away from
trendy neo-modernism, i.e. from the formalist “revival” or superficial appropriation
of the modern architectural heritage. This group includes the home at Kiourka,
Attica (d. 1988-1989), by architect Pantelis Nikolakopoulos (b. 1954), which
stands out because of its clarity and quality on all levels: composition of volumes,
articulation of functions, form, inclusion in the landscape and technology. These
virtues are reminiscent of works by the protagonists of architecture in the ’60s,
namely Zenetos, Valsamakis and, to a lesser degree, Konstantinidis (Fessas-
Emmanouil, 2001: 308).

The dawn of the 21st century and the 2004 Olympic Games

The dawn of the 21st century found Athens in a flurry of preparations for the
XXXVIII Olympiad (2004). A development plan of ninety-six renovation and
restoration projects, in conjunction with other infrastructure and landscape works,
succeeded in changing the face of Attica. This tremendous effort brought about a
great improvement in the quality of life for Athenians and visitors to the city alike.

But, the real challenge for 21st-century Athens is to achieve social integration for
the more than half a million low-income migrants – legal and illegal. The fact that
modern Athens has always attracted Greek rural migrants and refugees and its
creative absorption of the 230,000 refugees of Greek descent from Asia Minor in
the 1920s offer grounds for optimism.

References

Aesopos Y., Simeoforidis Y., eds. (1999), Landscapes of modernisation. Greek

Architecture, 1960s and 1990s, Athens, Metapolis Press.
Biris, Kostas (1964), Hai Athinai apo tou 19ou eis ton 20on aiona [Athens from
the 19th to the 20th century] , Athens: Foundation for Athenian History and
Town Planning.

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Biris, Manos (1987), Misos aionas athenaikis architektonikis, 1875-1925 [Fifty
years of Athenian Architecture, 1875-1925], Athens.
Burgel, Guy (1981), Croissance urbaine et développement capitaliste, le “miracle
athénien”, Paris, CNRS.
Burgel, Guy (1985), “The transformation of Athens” (Conversation of Savas
Tsilenis and Nikos Bogdanos with Guy Burgel and Zacharias Demathas
on 19.10.1985α), Athens in the 20th Century, Athens, Greek Ministry of
Culture: 74-76.
Candilis, Georges (1985), Zoi & Ergo [Life & Work], Athens, Hermes Editions.
Constantopoulos, Elias, ed. (1984), Nicos Valsamakis. 1950-83, London, 9H
Publications.
Fatouros, Dimitios, (2001), Orion, Vol.III (in Greek), Zafiropoulos. S. (eds),
Thessaloniki, Aristotle University, Polytechnic School.
Fessas-Emmanouil, Helen (1984), «Αρχιτεκτονική επίσηµη και ‘γοήτρου’ στη
µεταπολεµική Ελλάδα, 1945-1975» (“Prestige Architecture in postwar
Greece, 1945-1975”), design + art in Greece, no 15, p. 34-73.
Fessas-Emmanouil, Helen, ed. (1991), New Public Buildings by D. and S.
Antonakakis, A. Tombazis and N. Valsamakis (exhibition catalogue),
Athens, Greek Ministry of Culture.
Fessas-Emmanouil, Helen (1999), “Greek Architecture in the Counterbalancing
Decades of the ‘60s and ‘70s”, in Simeoforidis G. & Aisopos Y. (eds),
Landscapes of Modernisation. Greece, Architecture 1960s and 1990s
(exhibition catalogue), Athens, Metapolis Press, pp. 18-22.
Fessas-Emmanouil, Helen (2001), “Athens in the second half of the 20th century:
urban transformation and architectural creation”, Essays on Neohellenic
Architecture, Athens, EPIEE.
Frampton, Kenneth, ed. (1985), Atelier 66. The Architecture of Dimitris and
Suzana Antonakakis, New York, Rizzoli.
Kafkoula, Kiki (1990), The idea of the Garden City in Interwar Greek Town
Planning, Thessaloniki: Aristotetle University of Thessaloniki (in Greek).
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 Publications.
Krokos, Kyriakos (1989), “On the plans of the Thessaloniki Byzantine Museum”,
Tefchos, No 2, pp. 47-48.
Leontidou, Lila (1985), “Town planning and social transformations in Athens,
1914-1984”, Athens in the 20th Century, 1940-1985 (in Greek), Athens,
Ministry of Culture-Architects’ Association (exhibition catalogue).
Liapis, J. (1969), “Dimitris Pikionis (1887-1968)”, Architecture in Greece, No 3,
pp. 76-100.
Loyer, François (1968), “A critique of Contemporary Greek Architecture”,
Architecture in Greece, No 2, pp. 18-35.
Michael, Johannes (1969), Entwicklungsüberlegungen und Initiativen zum
Stadtplan von Athen nach dessen Erhebung zur Haupstadt
Griechenlands, Athen.
Philippides, Dimitri (1978), “Apartment houses and life in modern Greece”,
Architecture in Greece, No 12, pp. 103-107.
Philippides, Dimitri (1984), Neohelliniki Architektoniki. Architektoniki theoria kai
praxi (1830-1980) san antanaklasi ton ideologikon epilogon tis
neohellinikis koultouras [Neohellenic Architecture. Architectural Theory
and Practice (1830-1980) as a reflection of the ideological choices of
modern Greek culture], Athens, Melissa.
Philippides, Dimitri (1987), “On the work of Yannis Vikelas”, Architecture in
Greece, No 21, pp. 158-175.
Philippides, Dimitri (2000), “Valsamakis. The Passionate Quest for Architecture”,
Nicos Valsamakis Architect, Athens, Benaki Museum, pp. 251-263.
Philippides, Dimitri (2007), “Nicos Valsamakis. An essay on time”, Architecture in
Greece, No 34, pp. 44-50.
Dimitris Pikionis Architect. A Sentimental Topography (1989), London, A. A.
edition (exhibition catalogue).
Sarigiannis, Georgios (2000), Athens 1830-2000. Development, Town Planning,
Transportation (in Greek), Athens, Symetria Editions.
Simeoforidis, Yorgos (1989), “The Thessaloniki Byzantine Museum. A project by

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 Kyriakos Krokos”, Tefchos, No 2, pp. 35-48.
Takis Ch. Zenetos, 1926-1977 (1978), Athens, Architecture in Greece Press.
Tombazis, Alexandros (2002), Tombazis and Associates Architects, l’ Arca
Edizioni.
Travlos, John (1960, 1993), Poleodomiki exelixis ton Athinon (Urban
Development of Athens), Athens, p. 258.
Tzakou, Anastasia (1978), “The apartment house. Its postwar development in
Athens”, Architecture in Greece, No 12, pp. 131-143.

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Round Table Discussion

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Resumé of the Round Table Discussion
Opening remarks by G.P. Lavvas

Ladies and Gentlemen,

As I said this morning, the aim of our Inter-Balkan Cooperation on matters related
to the Architecture and City Planning of the 19th and 20th centuries (especially
that of the last century) can be seen as a steadfast common goal with three
directions:

First, the research, documentation and study of the relevant material in historical
archives, and the existing plans, photos, models etc. In addition to this, new
research programs can add to our knowledge about architectural styles, forms,
motifs and influences, and original creations of the spirit of the place or genius
loci in architecture. City planning concepts, unrecorded or inappropriate
developments, experiments and failures in attempting to solve the problems of
our cities can enrich our experience of the complexity of an urban organism. This
phase can be a very important part of our process and the foundation for every
further step to present the existing situation or the pathogenesis of the modern
city today.

It will be helpful to establish a common framework for these studies, in order to

ensure maximum transparency and a broad understanding of the situation in
each country and to make possible comparative studies and conclusions.

This valuable material can be promoted and disseminated through various forms
and modern means. Monographs by eminent architects and urban planners,

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CDs, DVDs, exhibitions and books about the general synthesis of Balkan
architecture and city-planning can bring forgotten Balkan creativity to the fore.
This is a desideratum for all of us and for the international architectural society.

Last but not least. The protection of the remarkable monuments of this period is
really at the top of our agenda. These monuments are in grave danger because
of the tremendous building boom that characterizes our daily life. Much of the
valuable architectural heritage has already been demolished. So we now must
save the remaining important examples for the sake of architectural continuity,
which is no longer ensured in comparison to previous centuries of the
architectural history.
* * *
The discussion was then opened for comments, proposals, new ideas and
criticism, in order to put this scientific cooperation on a common, feasible and
productive foundation.

Vassilis Sgoutas: At this preparatory meeting, he suggested it might be useful

to note a few points, such as how to define a capital city. The obvious definition
was as the seat of government (capital city). He questioned this from a linguistic
point of view. In most languages other than Greek, the term “capital city” is
derived from the word “head”, in the Romance languages (Latin caput-capitis), in
Arabic raisima (=head), in Turkish vasken (<vaska=head), in Bulgarian stalitsa,
and in Serbo-Croatian glavnigrad, all of which he finds not totally satisfactory.
The Greek language, he noted, was much richer from this point of view, because
“protevousa” (=capital city) means the “city with a leading role” which clearly does
not refer solely to administration, but to other things too, “leading” from an
economic point of view, etc. In this context, for example, the leading city in
Australia could never be Canberra. Istanbul is also a special case: it was once

105
the capital and is no longer, but is still considered to be a leading city. It is
necessary to clarify what we call a capital city.
In the Balkans there are many common points: there is a sort of communality of
heritage, which is also the result of fluctuating borders. Another common element
is that most external influences on Balkan countries were introduced at more or
less the same period, creating a unified context. He noted a phrase first used by
UNESCO: “the social segregation of space”, saying that a plea should be made
for the de-segregation of space, because what do people mean when they speak
of capital cities: the centres of towns, the historic centres? The rest tended to be
forgotten. In this regard, he believed that a crime was committed in Athens:
important new buildings were all located in the same area, which we ironically
call the “Museum mile” along Vas. Sofias St. Athens did not follow the good
precedent set by Paris, for instance, which made a policy of opening up poor
districts, like Villette etc. creating poles of attraction. Talking about space is
another major issue: who owns land? Who has the right to own land? Who is
going to profit from the land? Therefore, land affects town planning. Land
ownership is a major factor in the evolution of towns.

Architects and town planners are the ones who guarantee the continuity of
culture. Since it is not possible to preserve everything, they should be the best
arbiters of what to preserve or not to preserve. Otherwise, we will be known as
“curators of the Museum of History”, to use Francis Fukuyama’s famous phrase.
Of course, preserving a few monuments doesn’t change anything, because one
has to talk about character, pulse and memory. Looking at the past, two
examples of major interventions can be singled out: the destruction of medieval
Paris by Haussmann and the major ecological catastrophe caused by leveling
the green hills of Manhattan in order to create New York. These two examples
are both considered successful.

106
Another question he raised was how will all this be judged: the future criteria by
which judgements will be made will probably be totally different from what we
have at the moment. UNESCO used the phrase “Memory of the Future”. The
growing population in Balkan cities and the emerging problems (economic, social
etc) raise certain questions. To give an answer, a temporal network should be
created: how the past, present and future co-exist and affect the capitals. This is
how we must deal with the cities. The major issue is how capital cities evolve and
expand.

Panagis Psomopoulos: Regarding uses of space by human beings in changing

societies, this is a very dynamic system. For every human activity there’s human
investment. This has to be kept in mind when dealing with cities. He proposed a
comparison between Balkan cities in order to clarify a number of issues, such as
how will the old inspire the young (transmitting experience to the future is not an
easy thing to do); who will commit themselves to the Project to shape the Balkan
cities; how can one organise what is available in one’s own country and in one’s
own scientific field. He believed that the Project should focus on one or two main
questions, and that there should be a precise time schedule, and the names of
the cities included in the Project should be specified.

Dimitra Katochianou: She stressed the critical changes in some Balkan cities,
i.e. the passage from a communist to a capitalist or other system of government.
The issue, she believed was who has the major voice today, and whether we are
prepared to face great changes. Architects should provide models of thinking.

Alexandros Tripodakis: He proposed that the common problems in the Balkans

be identified in order to work out common policies for dealing with them.

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Regarding Balkan cities, the question of scale and the continuity of the urban
fabric could be two main issues.

Helen Fessas-Emmanouil: Regarding the long-term Project proposed by Miloš

Perović, she believed that we should start from existing knowledge and answer
the following questions: What should our first product be? A book and what else?
On what subject or subjects? In this regard, she noted that titles such as “The
presence of Balkan architects and town planners in European/World
Architecture”, or “Publicising the presence of Balkan architects and planners in
the Histories of European and World Architecture/Town Planning” would provide
an important challenge for this inter-Balkan venture. In terms of titles, there
could be three categories of projects: (a) Major Cities: Shaping the major cities in
the Balkans or in Southeastern Europe; proposal by Miloš Perović (b) 19th and
20th century Architects and Urban Planners in the Balkans (southeastern
Europe); (c) Architectural Heritage: Discovering 19th and 20th century architecture
in the Balkans (southeastern Europe).

Alexandros Fotiadis stated that 50 years ago the theory was to plan society on
the basis of 5-year plans, and now we have gone to the other extreme of
complete freedom. The balance, he believed, was somewhere in the middle.
Whatever the expansion of new towns may be, or the new design of towns, or
the new development of towns, everything will depend on what the new society is
going to be. And this sort of thing cannot be expressed by town planners and
architects. The issue is to express what the present society is. The compilation of
what we have done up to now is fundamental in determining its character.

Miloš Perović emphasised the fact that the Balkan architectural heritage has not
been publicised in its European context. It is a theme completely unknown to

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Europe. He proposed: 1. that a Balkan team be constituted including colleagues
from countries not represented here; 2. that a comparative analysis be made of
master-plans of the Balkan capitals or of the major Balkan cities; 3. that important
architects of Balkan origin be studied. Thus, he suggested that the final product
of the Project should be an exhibition and a book-catalogue. M. Perović’s
complete proposal, which was approved in principle by the participants, is
published at the end of these proceedings.

Panagis Psomopoulos commenting on the Perović proposal, insisted on the

need for a method of working, and for fund raising.

George Lavvas intervened and made it clear that the method and final steps
could not possibly be defined within a day. He suggested that the organizing
committee begin by collecting all the proposals to be studied.

Georges Prevelakis and Aleksandar Ignjatović expressed interesting

comments from a cultural and a geographical point of view respectively. The
former maintained that the fundamental question in this Project was the definition
of its identity, whether Balkan, Mediterranean or other. The basic geographical
question, according to the latter, was how to subdivide the land into regions. He
also noted that, concerning the Balkans, there was no visibility on a European
level.

Miloš Perović suggested the need to make the Balkans visible. Talking about
architecture is not only talking about building cities, but above all, about building
identity. Architecture may be both functional and symbolical, but it also creates
an identity, a Balkan one. The fundamental question is to what degree do we
wish to have a Balkan identity. Up to now all the Balkan peoples lived in the

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context of their national identity. During this Conference all the delegates have
had an opportunity to create a Balkan scientific community in order to reconnect
themselves to a common past and a common future. The Project can obtain
financial support from Europe, if it convincingly constitutes an identity-
constructing process. Europe is very much interested in projects that contribute
to identity. Reconnecting Balkan architecture to a larger context is an indirect
way to present images that correspond to a Balkan entity.

Aleksandar Ignjatović emphasised the question –or the burden– of Balkan

identity, which in the Western world has a number of negative connotations. This
is why the Conference participants should deal with this burden and suggest
ways to change the connotative meanings of the word “Balkan”. Another thing
that should be kept in mind is what the underlying expectations of the West are:
the Balkan identity exists not because there is a Balkan ideal but because there
are people willing to claim that identity. Reading about Balkan traditions that are
always associated with fragmentation created some cultural abstractions that
produced the term homo Balkanicus in contrast with the normal European homo
sapiens. He concluded with the view that it was necessary to rethink the title of
the Project, which includes the word “Balkan”. He suggested that terms like
“Modernism”, “Modern Architecture” etc could be very dangerous when used in
the Balkan context, since Balkan Master Architects and Town Planners were
often considered to be one or two steps behind their European counterparts.
Rethinking such characterizations would facilitate financial support for the
Project. Therefore, the title should not be something like a riddle but should be
provocative enough to raise further explorations, for example, “The dilemma of /
or constructing the Balkan identity”. The title should express the idea that Balkan
architecture is not only what is described in 19th-century books by French,
German or Austrian travellers.

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George Lavvas objected to the negative use of the word “Balkan” and defined
the aim of the Project as being to change any negative connotations and to
promote a new concept of the Balkan identity, as has already happened with the
word “Byzantium”.

Helen Fessas-Emmanouil disagreed with the statement that Europeans were

the real masters and Balkan architects their followers. Although she admitted this
might have been true, up to a point, for the 19th century, in the 20th century,
however, there were many important architects and researchers, movements and
ideas and, in general, a large number of high quality products in the Balkan
countries. She also emphasised that the achievements of this region cannot be
proved only by ideas and theories, but by the work of its architects and urban
planners both within and beyond its borders.

Vassilis Sgoutas also confirmed the negative connotations of the word “Balkan”,
but stressed that all the participants, through their presence at a Meeting with
such a title, should fight against it. He did not reject the Balkan identity and
considered it an obligation on the part of everyone at the Meeting to upgrade the
way others think about this region. He agreed with Mr Ignjatović’s suggestion to
search and find a new identity for the Balkans, and concluded by declaring his
view that the word “Balkan” in the title of the Project was the most appropriate
one.

Finally George Lavvas appointed the members of the scientific committee: from
Greece Helen Fessas-Emmanouil, from Serbia Miloš Perović, from Romania
Anca Bratuleanu, from Turkey Ayşe Nur Ökten, from Bulgaria Ljubinka Stoilova,
from France Georges Prevelakis, and from the European Union Violette Rey.

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*

112
SHAPING THE BALKAN CAPITALS
Research and Exhibition Proposal
by Dr. Miloš R. Perović

The Academy of Athens, the most significant scientific and cultural institution in
Greece, is planning to sponsor an international research project. According to a
recent article in the Wall Street Journal, so many museums have been built or
extended in the past two decades that curators have run out of ideas for
exhibitions. While this is surely an exaggeration, we propose here an exhibition
about an untouched subject, a fascinating field known only to a few connoisseurs
of the art of urbanism: the shaping of Balkan cities.

City plans made for London, Paris, Rome and Vienna, for instance, have been
well covered in the literature and in exhibitions. Western scholars and curators
are naturally inclined to give precedence to the material they have at hand, rather
than studying cities far away, some of which were half-concealed behind the Iron
Curtain, others were described in languages and alphabets little known beyond
the Balkans. This was true even though two prominent architects and town
planners with global practices, Georges Candilis and Constantinos Doxiadis,
originated from the region. Balkan scholars were unable to study or exhibit this
material comprehensively for several reasons: lack of funding, and then the fact
that many documents were dispersed throughout Europe, to which most Balkan
scholars could not travel for purposes of research. Drawings, plans, autograph
maps, base maps, and perspective sketches made by Western consultants are
scattered through archives in Paris, Brussels, Munich, Berlin, Vienna, and
London, among other places.

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During the past decade three glamorous exhibitions about Western and Central
European cities and their values, with accompanying catalogues and books,
were held without even the slightest reference being made to the Balkans. These
exhibitions and the catalogues were: La ville, art et architecture en Europe, 1870-
1993, Paris, Centre George Pompidou, 1993; Koos Bosma, Helma Hollinga,
eds., Mastering the City; North-European City Planning 1900-2000, Rotterdam,
NAI Publishers, The Hague, EFL Publications, 1997; Eve Blau, Monika Platzer,
eds., Shaping the Great City: Modern Architecture in Central Europe, 1890-1937,
Munich, Prestel, 1999.

Now that there is greater stability and less dictatorship in the Balkan region than
was formerly the case, and now that the European Union is expanding and
supporting culture, it is a good time to re-connect this region to the rest of Europe
by making its material aspect visible and meaningful. Accordingly, we propose an
extensive research project that will comprise a comparative study of the cities, a
book and travelling exhibition, and a publication about Balkan capitals and major
regional centres.
**

The Balkan Peninsula in southeastern Europe covers an area of 520,000 square

kilometers, and contains over fifty million inhabitants. Its borders are the rivers
Sava and Danube in the north, the waters of the Aegean, the Black Sea and the
Sea of Marmara to the east, the Adriatic and Ionian Sea to the west, and the
Mediterranean to the south. The countries included are Greece, Serbia and
Montenegro, Bulgaria, Albania, Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the
Dobruja area of Romania, Eastern Thrace with the Gallipolli Peninsula in Turkey,
and Trieste with its hinterland in Italy. The area includes Greeks and Slavs, as
well as Armenians, Jews, Hungarians and Austrians, and the religions practised

114
include Eastern Orthodoxy, Roman Catholicism, Islam, Protestant denominations
and Judaism. Some of the world’s most important cities with great history, such
as Athens and Istanbul, are located there. The Balkan capitals are: Athens,
Belgrade, Bucharest, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Skoplje, Sofia and Tirana.
Important regional centres include Thessaloniki, Constanţa, Timişoara and
Trieste. All of these are multi-ethnic communities.

Most of the capitals in the eastern part of the Balkans have a common history. In
antiquity and the middle ages, they were important cultural, trading or
administrative centres, but they were much reduced in importance during the
period of Turkish rule starting in the 14th century. After successful rebellions in
the early 19th century, all of them altered their Ottoman urban structures and
textures into European ones, while experiencing enormous growth. In a matter of
decades, they became metropolises with modern infrastructure systems and
housing stock. Similar processes also occurred in the western Balkans.

Some of the best architects and planners of the period assisted the changes in
planning, engineering, and architecture. They tested some of the most advanced
concepts and theories of urban growth and change on the Balkan capitals. It is
little known that the planning of Belgrade was carried out by Alban Chambon
(1914), Rudolf Perco and Marcel Aubertin (1922), and Alan Voorhees and
Associates (1972); while Ljubljana benefited from the ideas of Camillo Sitte
(1895), Max Fabiani (1899) and Joze Plecnik (1928); Zagreb those of Jacob
Berend Bakema (1965); and Istanbul of Joseph Antoine Bouvard in 1902. The
early planners of Athens are, to be sure, better known: Leo von Klenze and Karl
Friedrich Schinkel planned many aspects of the neo-Classical capital in 1834.
Later came Ludwig Hoffmann (1911) and Thomas Mawson (1914), followed by
Georges Candilis (1959) and Constantinos Doxiadis in the next year. The

115
planning of Sofia was done by Kolar (1879) and later on was carried out by
Licurg Amedey. Skoplje was the focus of international attention after the
calamitous earthquake of 1963. Most prominent among the international planners
of the restored city were Doxiadis (1963) and Kenzo Tange, who designed the
city centre (1965). In Thessaloniki, Thomas Mawson made proposals in 1918,
while Ernest Hébrard planned the central axis in 1919. In connection with the
city's designation as a cultural capital of Europe in 1997, international
competitions were held for the waterfront and completing the central axis;
prizewinners were Toyo Ito, Engel & Zillich from Germany, Manuel de Sola
Morales of Spain and the Dutch firm West 8. Sometimes, master plans elicited
solutions that later were used elsewhere in the world.

It is remarkable that decision-makers in Balkan capitals and regional centres,

whether kings, princes, or elected officials, always gave their cities the best talent
available anywhere in the world, regardless of the costs involved. Usually, the
cities realized only part of the master plan, but each plan's strengths led to a
residual influence on ways of thinking about the city. Being inspiring documents,
they shaped public opinion, which later guided the cities' development, at least
according to the spirit of the plan if not always in detail. This point is actually the
main subject of the proposed comparative study: the spirit and philosophy of
planning in various periods, and how these are reflected in the image of each
city.
***
The research project is intended to foster regional cooperation among nations,
cities, and institutions in various fields. Municipal authorities and faculty or
institute researchers from all cities will use the same methods, include the same
content, and present the maps in an identical graphic form so as to facilitate
comparative study.

116
The time span covers the years since 1800. For each city, an introductory
chapter will summarize its urban development from prehistoric times to the
beginning of the 19th century. The following chapters will deal separately with
each master plan that was adopted. Each chapter will be divided into three parts,
comprising:

I. A portrait of the city at about the time the master plan was commissioned.
This will be done by describing its area, population, structure and
distribution, its ethnic and occupational composition, housing situation,
infrastructure, the level of modernisation and technical advancement,
architectural styles, major lifestyles, and the problems faced by the city that
the master plan was meant to resolve.
Archival sources, geodetic survey maps, base maps, master plans,
perspective views, vintage aerial photographs, postcards and paintings will
allow us to reconstruct a composite picture of urban growth and change.

II. A history of each master plan, the major influences under which it was
made, its main ideas and concepts, and an account of its author(s).

III. An examination of the process and the level of implementation of the

master plan.
This section will cover new ideas, including major competition projects for
the development of the key urban spaces in each city.
This section will also include the complete work of one or two architects
whose work represents the major artistic tendencies of the period between
the two master plans, regardless where the majority of their buildings are
located in the country.

117
Thus the study will examine modern town planning and the city over a vast
geographical area, and covering two centuries of tumultuous social and political
change. In these centuries, the Balkan peoples embraced the social, cultural,
and aesthetic values of the West. Accordingly, the proposed study will also open
the discussion of a little-known but timely subject: The conflict between the
imported urban forms based on elegant European planning proposals and the
reality of the predominantly peasant population who had recently moved to
expanding cities with scarce economic resources and few properly-trained
architects and planners.

An international comparative study should show the effects of the relationship

between the planning concept, structures, and inhabitants. Various theories of
urban development, implemented through successive master plans, produced
differing results in the Balkan capitals and regional centres, thereby affecting the
inhabitants' lives in different ways.

Our goals are to produce the travelling exhibition and to direct the publication of a
multi-volume book. Its quality of print and format, and its accessible language,
should make it possible for all inhabitants of the Balkan region to understand and
enjoy the beauty and meaning of the art of town planning as practised in their
major cities.

118
 TITLE FOR THE MAJOR LONG-TERM PROJECT

CAPITALS / MAJOR CITIES

SHAPING THE BALKAN CAPITALS / MAJOR CITIES (19th & 2Oth CENTURIES).

SHAPING THE SOUTHEASTERN EUROPEAN CAPITALS / MAJOR CITIES (19th &

2Oth CENTURIES).
**
Titles for the Short-term Project
ARCHITECTS & TOWN PLANNERS
MASTERS OF 19 AND 20th CENTURY ARCHITECTURE AND TOWN PLANNING IN
th

THE BALKANS.
MASTERS OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE AND TOWN PLANNING IN THE BALKANS.
or
th th
MASTERS OF 19 AND 20 CENTURY ARCHITECTURE AND TOWN PLANNING IN
SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE.
MASTERS OF MODERN ARCHITECTURE AND TOWN PLANNING IN
SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE.
**
MODERN ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGE
CHARTING (DISCOVERING) MODERN HERITAGE ARCHITECTURE OF THE
BALKANS
CHARTING (DISCOVERING) THE 19th AND 20th CENTURY HERITAGE
ARCHITECTURE OF THE BALKANS.
***
CHARTING (DISCOVERING) THE MODERN HERITAGE ARCHITECTURE IN
SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE.
***
CHARTING (DISCOVERING) THE 19th AND 20th CENTURY HERITAGE
ARCHITECTURE IN SOUTHEASTERN EUROPE.

119
 HIGHLIGHTS OF BALKAN ARCHITECTURE
[AND URBAN PLANNING?]

( Post Congress proposal by H. Fessas-Emmanouil replacing the titles of short-

term projects regarding architects, town planners and the modern heritage
architecture: Masters of 19th and 20th Century Architecture and Town Planning in
the Balkans, etc).

120
ABSTRACTS

121
122
EMPIRE, NATIONALISM AND THE COLD WAR.
THE BALKAN URBAN ICONOGRAPHIES
by Georges Prevelakis & Violette Rey

The Balkan cities experienced –together with the rest of the Peninsula– rapid and
radical changes during the 19th and the 20th centuries. The imperial multicultural
cities lost their role as crossroads of cultures and exchanges while the capitals of
the new Nation-States became pioneers in the transformation of identities,
territories and networks according to the new ethos of Nationalism. After the
Second World War, Nationalism continued to dominate the ideological scene, but
with a less historical and more economic discourse. Finally, the end of the Cold
War reunified Balkan space creating thus the conditions for the reemergence of a
Balkan urban network. In many cities these developments have led to a very
diverse –and even chaotic– urban landscape, and much destruction often took
place for ideological and political reasons.

The preservation and reutilization of the various elements of the urban landscape
cannot ignore the relationship between the forms and processes –ideological,
economic and political– that gave birth to them. For this reason, the geographical
concept of Iconography introduced by Jean Gottmann in the late forties is
essential not only in analysing the Balkan urban landscape but also in creating a
framework of meaning for architectural and urban design. This hypothesis will be
illustrated with a few examples from the north and from the south of the Balkans.

123
BUCHAREST IN THE 19th AND 20th CENTURIES.
THE EVOLUTION OF THE URBAN SCALE
by Anca Bratuleanu

Medieval Bucharest was developed following Balkan patterns and rules, as well
as the specific needs of the different communities inhabiting it.

The paper focuses on the pulse of the pre-modern urban fabric, which preserved
its character until the end of the 19th century. It will also analyses the ways in
which the “city-makers” approached the existing urban structure and its “natural”
growth in the 20th century.

Two main periods are considered:

• The interwar period, in which the use of the urban space was made
following "scientific rules", trying to cover all the aspects and needs of the
city’s inhabitants;
• The communist era, characterized by the so-called urban "planned
development", in reality a "consumption" of the urban space that mirrored
solely political orders. Two case studies, chosen from two different areas
of Bucharest, illustrate this development.

The presentation ends with the idea of the urban space as "space of
consumption", which seems to be the main feature of our times.

124
SOFIA IN TWO CENTURIES
by Ljubinka Stoilova - Petar Iokimov

The main stages of development of the city of Sofia are outlined in their political
and social aspects, as follows:
• From the mid-19th century to the National Liberation, 1878;
• From the late 19th century to World War I;
• Between the two world wars;
• After World War II to the late 1980s;
• After 1989.

In this context a review is made on the main city features over time, i.e. the
development of the city structure and changes in architectural style.

In conclusion the authors outline the benefits of Balkan cooperation to the

contemporary Bulgarian practice of city shaping, architectural development and
safeguarding of the cultural heritage.

125
CONSTRUCTING THE CAPITAL OF YUGOSLAVISM:
THE IDENTITY OF BELGRADE ARCHITECTURE, 1904-1941
by Aleksandar Ignjatović

Within the context of the Yugoslav ideology labelled ”national oneness” (narodno
jedinstvo) that dominated the political scene in the Western Balkans between
1904 and 1941, architecture was an integral part of the dynamic processes of
representing the idea of Yugoslavism that emerged from the turbulent global
political changes in the region. As the centre of political and cultural influences
and economic support for the Yugoslav idea, Belgrade was constantly in a state
of transition, not only from the capital of the Kingdom of Serbia to the major
administrative centre of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, but also to the stronghold of
the Yugoslav idea itself. Within that process architecture was established as an
essential substance of Yugoslav identity –ethnic, national, racial, cultural and
political- whilst its major representative buildings powerfully shaped the visual
identity of Belgrade.

Concerning the concept that corresponds to general ideological focus and

particular cultural context of the time, the process of constructing and
representing the idea of the Yugoslav nation, culture and state can be generally
understood through three cultural paradigms, reflecting the three major ideas that
shaped Yugoslavism as an ideology. The first one was primordialism, which
concerns the idea of a primeval, single and integral, authentic and autonomous
Yugoslav nation, race, ethnic and culture; the next one was syncretism, which is
based on the concept of Yugoslavism as a synthesis of tribe and nation, ethnic,
cultural, or regional traditions and identities. The third paradigm –universalism–
indicated the concept of the Yugoslav nation and state as a legitimate and
intrinsic member of the European cultural community.

The architectural derivations of these broader cultural paradigms could be seen

126
in the political, urban and cultural topography of Belgrade, and were important for
representing the very idea of Yugoslavism. Moreover, as the models of
constructing a single and multi-national, cultural and social identity, these
corresponded to the broader context of the Balkan historical and cultural milieu in
the 19th and 20th century, as a short-lived, but interesting example of casting
images of cultural abstractions such as a nation, a culture and a state.

127
SHAPING THE BALKAN CAPITALS: BELGRADE
by Miloš R. Perović and Dragana Corović

Within a period of just 120 years Belgrade experienced a tremendous

transformation from a small Turkish garrison town to a metropolis with modern
infrastructure. A number of theories of urban development, implemented through
successive master plans, produced variously structured parts of the city, which
affect its citizens' lives in different ways. This study on the urban development of
Belgrade and its historical and political influences is, at the same time, a study of
how ideas are transformed when they are distanced from the primary centres of
cultural development and adapted to local and often quite different needs.

128
THE TOWN PLANNING OF ATHENS DURING
THE 19th AND EARLY 20th CENTURY:
A GENERAL OUTLINE
by Emmanuel V. Marmaras

The work carried out in Athens, from the time it was designated capital of the
modern Greek state (31 March 1833) until the end of the nineteenth century,
could justly be characterized as colossal. In fact, a new town was created on the
ruins of the glorious Athens of classical antiquity and on the debris of a small
market town with many features of the Levant. Furthermore, the town planning
and housing developments in Athens from the twentieth century to the outbreak
of the Second World War made a decisive contribution to changing the image of
Athens and paving the way for the city to develop its postwar profile.

Criticism of the type of city that has emerged, and clearly it is not the best that
might have been hoped for, should be focused primarily on the town planning
rather than the architectural level. In particular it should be attributed to the
inability of the state to impose regulations on landowners for the sound planning,
organization and construction of urban real estate. This inability has its roots in
the initial phase of planning for the new Athens. It was further aggravated after
the Asia Minor disaster, when the austerity that characterized the state finances
approached penury, culminating in bankruptcy in 1932.

In the final analysis, an objective account of developments in the Athens urban

complex would have to include, in addition to the conditions that prevailed in the
first half of the twentieth century, the town’s unpredictable growth in the postwar
period, when the phenomenon of urbanization outstripped all capacity to make
reasonable provision for it, and development brought about conditions that defied
all efforts at control.

129
THE ROLE AND WORK OF ARCHITECTS IN ATHENS
IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 20th CENTURY: A BRIEF OUTLINE
by Helen Fessas-Emmanouil

Approaching 20th-century architecture in Athens solely in terms of its historical

development –i.e. the functional, technological, economic and stylistic changes
that have taken place– would leave a great deal unsaid. There have always been
other forces at work, more substantial and constant, such as the city’s mild
climate and geography. In addition, cultural facts, socio-economic conditions and
the great variety of architects in terms of their qualifications and attitudes have
also been of decisive influence. Two special features of postwar Athens that
likewise had a role to play were the high social mobility of its population and the
failure of the competent agencies to organise urban space in a rational way and
to promote quality architecture in the public sector. Hence the role of its
architects and town planners was marginal in shaping the Greek capital city and
in the design of its major buildings in the second half of the 20th century. This
marginalisation accounts for the singular difficulty in identifying quality public
buildings in the urban landscape. But this was not because Greece lacked
capable urban planners or gifted architects; indeed it generated many who
produced work of more than local or contemporary value.

This presentation consists of five parts. The first is an introduction to central

issues, such as the characteristic features, influences and general trends of
architecture; the second outlines the role of architects and the building types in
which they were most successful in the period 1950-2004. This is followed by a
brief historical survey in three periods: (a) 1950-1965. Modernisation and the
short-lived spring; (b) 1966-1975. The decline of modernism; and (c) From the
1980s to the Dionysiac and c0haotic threshold of the 21st century. The postscript
of this presentation is entitled “The dawn of the 21st century and the Olympic
Games”.

130
SHAPING THE BALKAN CAPITALS
Research and Exhibition Proposal
by Miloš R. Perović

According to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, so many museums have
been built or extended in the past two decades that curators have run out of
ideas for exhibitions. While this is surely an exaggeration, we propose here an
exhibition about an untouched subject, a fascinating field known only to a few
connoisseurs of the art of urbanism: the shaping of Balkan cities.

Plans made for London, Paris, Rome and Vienna, for instance, have been well
covered in the literature and in exhibitions. Western scholars and curators are
naturally inclined to give precedence to material they have at hand, rather than
study cities far away, some of which were half-concealed behind the Iron Curtain,
and some of which were described in languages and alphabets little known
beyond the Balkans. This was true even though two prominent architects and
planners with worldwide practices, Georges Candilis and Constantinos Doxiadis,
came from the region. Balkan scholars were unable to study or exhibit this
material comprehensively for several reasons: lack of funding, and then the fact
that many documents are dispersed throughout Europe, to which most Balkan
scholars could not travel for purposes of research. Drawings, plans, autograph
maps, base maps, and perspective sketches made by western consultants are
scattered throughout archives in Paris, Brussels, Munich, Berlin, Vienna, London,
and elsewhere.

During the last decade three glamorous exhibitions about West European and
Central European cities and their values with corresponding catalogues and
books were held without making even the least reference to the Balkans. The
exhibitions and the catalogues are: La ville, art et architecture en Europe, 1870-
1993, Paris, Centre George Pompidou, 1993; Koos Bosma, Helma Hollinga,

131
eds., Mastering the City; North-European City Planning 1900-2000, Rotterdam,
NAI Publishers, The Hague, EFL Publications, 1997; Eve Blau, Monika Platzer,
eds., Shaping the Great City: Modern Architecture in Central Europe, 1890-1937,
Munich, Prestel, 1999.

Now that there is greater stability and less dictatorship in the Balkan region than
was formerly the case, and now that the European Union is expanding and
supporting culture, it is a good time to re-connect this region to the rest of Europe
by making its material aspect visible and meaningful. Accordingly, we propose an
extensive research project having to do with a comparative study of the cities, a
book and a traveling exhibition, and a publication about Balkan capitals and
major regional centres.

132
ΑΥΤΟΚΡΑΤΟΡΙΑ, ΕΘΝΙΚΙΣΜΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΨΥΧΡΟΣ ΠΟΛΕΜΟΣ.
ΟΙ ΒΑΛΚΑΝΙΚΕΣ ΑΣΤΙΚΕΣ ΕΙΚΟΝΟΓΡΑΦΙΕΣ
Γιώργος Πρεβελάκης και Violette Rey

Οι Βαλκανικές πόλεις έχουν γνωρίσει –µαζί µε τις υπόλοιπες της Χερσονήσου–

ραγδαίες και ριζικές αλλαγές κατά τη διάρκεια του 19ου και του 20ού αιώνα. Οι
αυτοκρατορικές πολυπολιτισµικές πόλεις έχασαν τον ρόλο τους ως
σταυροδρόµια πολιτισµών και ανταλλαγών, ενώ οι πρωτεύουσες των νέων
κρατών έγιναν πρωτοπόροι των µεταµορφώσεων των ταυτοτήτων, των εδαφών
και των δικτύων σύµφωνα µε το νέο ήθος του εθνικισµού. Μετά τον Δεύτερο
Παγκόσµιο Πόλεµο, ο εθνικισµός εξακολούθησε να κυριαρχεί στο ιδεολογικό
πεδίο, όχι τόσο για ιστορικούς όσο για οικονοµικούς λόγους. Το τέλος του
Ψυχρού Πολέµου ενοποίησε τον Βαλκανικό χώρο, δηµιουργώντας τις συνθήκες
για την ανάδυση ενός Βαλκανικού αστικού δικτύου. Σε πολλές πόλεις αυτές οι
εξελίξεις οδήγησαν σ’ ένα διεσπαρµένο, ακόµηκαι χαοτικό αστικό τοπίο και
πολλές καταστροφές συχνά έλαβαν χώρα για ιδεολογικούς και πολιτικούς
λόγους.

Η διατήρηση και επανάχρηση των ποικίλων στοιχείων του αστικού τοπίου δεν
µπορούν να αγνοήσουν τη σχέση ανάµεσα στις µορφές και τις διαδικασίες –
ιδεολογικές, οικονοµικές και πολιτικές– που τις δηµιούργησαν. Για τον λόγο αυτό
η γεωγραφική έννοια της «εικονογραφίας» που εισήχθη από τον Jean Gottmann
στα τέλη της δεκαετίας του ’40 είναι βασική, όχι µόνο για την ανάλυση του
Βαλκανικού αστικού τοπίου, αλλά και για τη δηµιουργία ενός εννοιολογικού
πλαισίου για τον αρχιτεκτονικό και πολεοδοµικό σχεδιασµό. Η υπόθεση αυτή θα
σκιαγραφηθεί µέσα από µερικά παραδείγµατα από τη βόρεια και νότια περιοχή
των Βαλκανίων.

133
Η ΔΙΑΜΟΡΦΩΣΗ ΤΩΝ ΒΑΛΚΑΝΙΚΩΝ ΠΡΩΤΕΥΟΥΣΩΝ: ΒΕΛΙΓΡΑΔΙ
Miloš R. Perović - Dragana Ćorović

Σε 120 µόλις χρόνια το Βελιγράδι υπέστη µια εκπληκτική µεταµόρφωση. Από τον
µικρό Τουρκικό οικισµό των 5000 κατοίκων µετασχηµατίστηκε σε µητροπολιτικό
κέντρο µε µοντέρνα δοµή. Διάφορες θεωρίες αστικής ανάπτυξης, υλοποιηµένες
µε επιτυχία µέσα από πληθώρα πολεοδοµικών σχεδίων, δηµιούργησαν τα
ποικίλα δοµηµένα τµήµατα της πόλης, τα οποία επηρέασαν τις ζωές των
κατοίκων τους µε διαφορετικό τρόπο. Η παρούσα εισήγηση βασίζεται σε µια
πολύπλευρη µελέτη της διαµόρφωσης του Βελιγραδίου στην οποία, εκτός από
τους ιστορικούς και πολιτικούς παράγοντες της πολεοδοµικής του εξέλιξης,
εξετάζεται και ένα γενικότερο ζήτηµα: η µεταµόρφωση των ιδεών –
αρχιτεκτονικών και πολεοδοµικών– όταν αυτές µεταφέρονται από τα κέντρα της
πολιτισµικής ανάπτυξης στην περιφέρεια για να υπηρετήσουν τοπικές και αρκετά
διαφορετικές ανάγκες.

134
ΤΟ ΒΟΥΚΟΥΡΕΣΤΙ ΚΑΤΑ ΤΟΝ 19ο ΚΑΙ ΤΟΝ 20ό ΑΙΩΝΑ.
Η ΕΞΕΛΙΞΗ ΤΗΣ ΠΟΛΕΟΔΟΜΙΚΗΣ ΚΛΙΜΑΚΑΣ
Anca Bratuleanu

Το µεσαιωνικό Βουκουρέστι διαµορφώθηκε στο πλαίσιο Βαλκανικών µοντέλων

και κανόνων αλλά και µέσα από τις ειδικές ανάγκες των διαφορετικών κοινοτήτων
που ζούσαν σε αυτό.

Η εισήγηση επικεντρώνεται στον παλµό του προ-µοντέρνου πολεοδοµικού ιστού,

ο οποίος διατήρησε τον χαρακτήρα του έως τα τέλη του 19ου αιώνα. Θα
αναλύσει επίσης τους τρόπους µε τους οποίους οι δηµιουργοί των πόλεων (city-
makers) του 20ού αιώνα προσέγγισαν την υφιστάµενη πολεοδοµική δοµή και τη
φυσική της διαµόρφωση.

Δύο υπήρξαν οι βασικές περίοδοι της πολεοδοµικής εξέλιξης του Βελιγραδίου:

• η περίοδος του Μεσοπολέµου, κατά την οποία η χρήση του δηµόσιου
χώρου βασιζόταν σε επιστηµονικούς κανόνες µε σκοπό την κάλυψη όλων
των απόψεων και των αναγκών των κατοίκων της πόλης · και
• η Κοµµουνιστική εποχή µε χαρακτηριστικό στοιχείο την ονοµαζόµενη
«σχεδιασµένη πολεοδοµική ανάπτυξη», η οποία στην πραγµατικότητα
αποτελούσε «κατανάλωση» του αστικού χώρου και αντικατόπτριζε τους
πολιτικούς κανόνες.

Με τη βοήθεια δύο επιλεγµένων παραδειγµάτων από δύο διαφορετικές περιοχές

του Βουκουρεστίου σκιαγραφείται η ανάπτυξη της πόλης στα χρόνια του
Μεσοπολέµου και του Ψυχρού Πολέµου.

Η παρουσίαση ολοκληρώνεται µε την ιδέα του αστικού χώρου ως «χώρου

κατανάλωσης» η οποία φαίνεται να αποτελεί και την κυρίαρχη τάση της εποχής
µας.

135
Η ΣΟΦΙΑ ΣΕ ΔΥΟ ΑΙΩΝΕΣ
Ljubinka Stoilova – Petar Iokimov

Τα βασικά στάδια της ανάπτυξης της πόλης της Σόφιας από τον 19ο στον 21ο
αιώνα θα µπορούσαν να σκιαγραφηθούν από πολιτικής και κοινωνιολογικής
απόψεως ως εξής:
• Από τα µέσα του 19ου αιώνα έως την Εθνική Απελευθέρωση του 1878.
• Από τον ύστερο 19ο αιώνα µέχρι τον Α΄ Παγκόσµιο Πόλεµο.
• Η περίοδος του Μεσοπολέµου.
• Από το τέλος του Β΄ Παγκοσµίου Πολέµου έως τα τέλη της δεκαετίας του
’80.
• Μετά το 1989.

Στο πλαίσιο αυτό η εισήγηση προσεγγίζει δύο βασικά στοιχεία της Σόφιας: την
ανάπτυξη του πολεοδοµικού της ιστού και τις αλλαγές των αρχιτεκτονικών στιλ
από τα µέσα του 19ου αιώνα µέχρι σήµερα.

Στο τέλος της εισήγησης υπογραµµίζονται τα οφέλη µιας διαβαλκανικής

συνεργασίας για την τρέχουσα πρακτική της Βουλγαρίας ως προς τη
διαµόρφωση της Σόφιας, την αρχιτεκτονική ανάπτυξη και την προστασία της
πολιτιστικής κληρονοµιάς.

136
ΚΑΤΑΣΚΕΥΑΖΟΝΤΑΣ ΤΗΝ ΠΡΩΤΕΥΟΥΣΑ ΤΟΥ «ΓΙΟΥΚΟΣΛΑΒΙΣΜΟΥ»:
Η ΤΑΥΤΟΤΗΤΑ ΤΗΣ ΑΡΧΙΤΕΚΤΟΝΙΚΗΣ ΤΟΥ ΒΕΛΙΓΡΑΔΙΟΥ
Aleksandar Ignatović

Στη διαµόρφωση της Γιουγκοσλαβικής ιδεολογίας µε την έννοια της «εθνικής

µοναδικότητας» (naodno jedinstvo), η οποία κυριάρχησε στην πολιτική σκηνή
των δυτικών Βαλκανίων την περίοδο 1904 -1941, συµµετείχε και η αρχιτεκτονική
ως αναπόσπαστο κοµµάτι µιας δυναµικής διαδικασίας. Πρόκειται για τη
διαδικασία αναπαράστασης της ιδέας του Γιουγκοσλαβισµού, η οποία αναδύθηκε
µέσα από την αναταραχή των πολιτικών αλλαγών στην περιοχή. Κέντρο
πολιτικών και πολιτισµικών επιρροών αλλά και οικονοµικής υποστήριξης της
Γιουγκοσλαβικής ιδέας, το Βελιγράδι ήταν διαρκώς σε κατάσταση µετάβασης, όχι
µόνο από πρωτεύουσα του Βασιλείου της Σερβίας σε µεγάλο διοικητικό και
κυβερνητικό κέντρο του Βασιλείου της Γιουγκοσλαβίας, αλλά και ως προπύργιο
της ίδιας της Γιουγκοσλαβικής ιδέας. Στη διαδικασία αυτή η αρχιτεκτονική
καθιερώθηκε ως ουσιώδης έννοια της Γιουγκοσλαβικής ταυτότητας –εθνικής,
φυλετικής, κρατικής, πολιτισµικής και πολιτικής–, ενώ οι σπουδαιότερες και
αντιπροσωπευτικότερες αρχιτεκτονικές µορφές καθόρισαν δυναµικά την οπτική
ταυτότητα του Βελιγραδίου.

Λαµβάνοντας υπόψη δεδοµένα που ανταποκρίνονται σ’ ένα γενικό ιδεολογικό

κέντρο και σε ένα ειδικό πολιτισµικό πλαίσιο της εποχής, η διαδικασία
κατασκευής και αναπαράστασης της ιδέας του Γιουγκοσλαβικού έθνους και
πολιτισµού, αλλά και η ταυτότητά της θα µπορούσαν γενικά να κατανοηθούν
µέσα από τρία παραδείγµατα. Αυτά αντανακλούν τρεις βασικές ιδέες που
διαµόρφωσαν τον Γιουγκοσλαβισµό. Το πρώτο παράδειγµα ήταν η ιδέα των
«απαρχών» που οδηγούσε στην ιδέα του αρχέγονου, µοναδικού και
αναπόσπαστου, αυθεντικού και αυτόνοµου Γιουγκοσλαβικού έθνους, κράτους και
πολιτισµού. Το επόµενο παράδειγµα ήταν η «συνθετική» ιδέα η οποία βασίστηκε
στον ορισµό του Γιουγκοσλαβισµού ως σύνθεση «φυλετικών-εθνικών»,

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πολιτισµικών ή περιφερειακών παραδόσεων και ταυτοτήτων. Το τρίτο
παράδειγµα –η «διεθνής ιδέα»– υποδεικνύει την αναγνώριση του
Γιουγκοσλαβικού έθνους και κράτους ως νόµιµου και εγγενούς µέλους της
Ευρωπαϊκής πολιτισµικής κοινότητας.

Αρχιτεκτονικές παραγωγές των τριών αυτών γενικών πολιτισµικών

παραδειγµάτων µπορούν να αναζητηθούν στην πολιτική, αστική και πολιτισµική
τοπογραφία του Βελιγραδίου, καθώς υπήρξαν σηµαντικές για την αναπαράσταση
της ιδέας του Γιουγκοσλαβισµού. Επιπλέον, τα µοντέλα κατασκευής µιας
πολιτισµικής και κοινωνικής ταυτότητας, µοναδικής ή πολυπολιτισµικής,
ανταποκρίνονται στο ευρύτερο ιστορικό και πολιτισµικό περιβάλλον των
Βαλκανίων του 19ου και 20ού αιώνα. Ως εκ τούτου συνιστούν µια ενδιαφέρουσα
περίπτωση διαµόρφωσης των αναπαραστάσεων αφηρηµένων εννοιών όπως το
έθνος, ο πολιτισµός και το κράτος.

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Ο ΠΟΛΕΟΔΟΜΙΚΟΣ ΣΧΕΔΙΑΣΜΟΣ ΤΗΣ ΑΘΗΝΑΣ ΚΑΤΑ ΤΟΝ 19ο ΚΑΙ ΤΙΣ
20ού αιώνα. Ένα γενικό περίγραµµα.
Εµµανουήλ Μαρµαράς

Η εργασία που αναλήφθηκε στην Αθήνα από τη στιγµή που επιλέχθηκε ως

πρωτεύουσα του Νεώτερου Ελληνικού κράτους (31.3.1833) έως τα τέλη του
19ου αιώνα θα µπορούσε να χαρακτηρισθεί κολοσσιαία. Στην πραγµατικότητα
µια νέα πόλη δηµιουργήθηκε επάνω από τα ερείπια της ένδοξης Αθήνας της
κλασικής αρχαιότητας και τα συντρίµµια της µικρής αγοράς της πόλης µε τα
χαρακτηριστικά στοιχεία της Μεσογείου. Ο πολεοδοµικός σχεδιασµός και η
οικιστική ανάπτυξη της ελληνικής πρωτεύουσας από τον 20ό αιώνα µέχρι και την
έναρξη του Δευτέρου Παγκοσµίου Πολέµου συνέβαλε αποφασιστικά στην αλλαγή
της εικόνας της Αθήνας και τη µετάβαση στον τρόπο µε τον οποίο η πόλη
ανέπτυξε το µεταπολεµικό της πρόσωπο.

Η κριτική ως προς τον τύπο της πόλης που αναδύθηκε, και η οποία σίγουρα δεν
είναι η καλύτερη που θα ευχόµασταν, θα πρέπει να εστιαστεί περισσότερο στον
αστικό σχεδιασµό παρά σε αρχιτεκτονικό επίπεδο. Ειδικότερα θα πρέπει να
αποδοθεί στην ανικανότητα της πολιτείας να επιβάλει στους κατόχους οικοπέδων
ρυθµιστικούς κανόνες για τον σχεδιασµό, την οργάνωση και την κατασκευή της
αστικής ακίνητης περιουσίας. Αυτή η ανικανότητα έχει τις ρίζες της στην αρχική
φάση του σχεδιασµού για τη νέα Αθήνα. Παρ’ όλα αυτά η πόλη επιβαρύνθηκε
ακόµη περισσότερο µετά την Μικρασιατική καταστροφή, όταν η λιτότητα που
χαρακτήριζε την εθνική οικονοµία έφτασε στην πενία, µε αποκορύφωµα την
πτώχευση του 1932.

Σε τελική ανάλυση, ένας αντικειµενικός υπολογισµός των αναπτυξιακών

προγραµµάτων του πολεοδοµικού συγκροτήµατος της Αθήνας θα πρέπει να
συµπεριλάβει επιπροσθέτως τις συνθήκες που υπερίσχυσαν στο πρώτο µισό του
20ού αιώνα, την απροσδόκητη ανάπτυξη της πόλης κατά τη µεταπολεµική
περίοδο, όταν το φαινόµενο της αστικοποίησης υπερέβη όλη τη χωρητικότητα

139
του αττικού τοπίου πέρα από κάθε λογική πρόβλεψη, και την ανάπτυξη η οποία
επέφερε συνθήκες που δεν επιδέχονταν έλεγχο.

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Ο ΡΟΛΟΣ ΚΑΙ ΤΟ ΕΡΓΟ ΤΩΝ ΕΛΛΗΝΩΝ ΑΡΧΙΤΕΚΤΟΝΩΝ ΣΤΟ ΔΕΥΤΕΡΟ
ΗΜΙΣΥ ΤΟΥ 20ού ΑΙΩΝΑ: ΜΙΑ ΣΥΝΟΠΤΙΚΗ ΑΝΑΔΡΟΜΗ
Ελένη Φεσσά-Εµµανουήλ

Η ελληνική αρχιτεκτονική του 20ού αιώνα δεν µπορεί να προσεγγιστεί µόνο µε

τους όρους της ιστορικής της πορείας, όρους διεθνείς και τοπικούς στους
οποίους ανήκουν η πολιτική και οικονοµική ιστορία, οι τεχνολογικές εξελίξεις και
οι ρυθµολογικές αλλαγές. Εκτός από τους µεταβλητούς αυτούς όρους, υπήρχαν
πάντα διαµορφωτικοί παράγοντες πιο σταθεροί όπως το ήπιο κλίµα, το τοπίο και
η γεωγραφική θέση της Ελλάδας. Πολιτισµικές και κοινωνικο-οικονοµικές
ιδιαιτερότητες, σε συνδυασµό µε τη µεγάλη ποικιλία αρχιτεκτόνων διαφορετικών
ικανοτήτων, παιδείας και απόψεων, επηρέασαν επίσης την παραγωγή της
έντεχνης αρχιτεκτονικής κατά το δεύτερο ήµισυ του 20ού αιώνα. Στις
ιδιαιτερότητες αυτές ανήκουν η υψηλή κοινωνική κινητικότητα του αστικού
πληθυσµού, η πλήρης αδυναµία ή απροθυµία των αρµοδίων φορέων να
ρυθµίσουν ορθολογιστικά τον αστικό χώρο αλλά και να στηρίξουν την ποιοτική
διάσταση των δηµοσίων κτιρίων. Έτσι, η παρουσία των αρχιτεκτόνων στη
διαµόρφωση της ελληνικής πόλης των ετών 1945-2000 και στον σχεδιασµό των
σηµαντικών της κτιρίων υπήρξε περιθωριακή. Στην περιθωριοποίηση αυτή
οφείλεται η µεγάλη διασπορά των αρχιτεκτονηµάτων ποιότητας, τα οποία είναι
δύσκολο να ανακαλυφθούν µέσα στο ελληνικό αστικό τοπίο.

Από τη µεταπολεµική Ελλάδα δεν έλλειψαν ωστόσο οι ικανοί αρχιτέκτονες και

πολεοδόµοι, ορισµένοι µάλιστα από τους οποίους δηµιούργησαν έργο µε
διαχρονική ή υπερτοπική αξία. Σκοπός της εισήγησης είναι να δώσει ένα
περίγραµµα αυτού ακριβώς του έργου τους και να φωτίσει τις σχέσεις του µε τις
διεθνείς τάσεις αφ’ ενός και την µακραίωνη ελληνική παράδοση αφ’ ετέρου.

Η εισήγηση περιλαµβάνει πέντε µέρη. Το πρώτο είναι εισαγωγικό και αναφέρεται

σε θέµατα ουσίας, όπως είναι: τα χαρακτηριστικά γνωρίσµατα, οι επιδράσεις και

141
οι γενικές τάσεις της έντεχνης ελληνικής αρχιτεκτονικής, ο ρόλος των
αρχιτεκτόνων και οι κατηγορίες κτιρίων των ετών 1950-2004 στις οποίες
πραγµατοποιήσαν το αξιολογότερο έργο τους. Ακολουθεί η σύντοµη ιστορική
αναδροµή στο θέµα, η οποία περιλαµβάνει τρία µέρη µε τίτλους: (α) 1950-1965.
Ανανέωση και βραχύβια άνοιξη, (β) 1966-1975. Η παρακµή του µοντερνισµού και
(γ) Από τη δεκαετία του 1980 στο Διονυσιακό στο χαοτικό κατώφλι του 21ου
αιώνα. Το τελευταίο µέρος, το οποίο αποτελεί τον επίλογο της εισήγησης, έχει
τίτλο «Η αυγή του 21ου αιώνα και οι Ολυµπιακοί Αγώνες του 2004».

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ΔΙΑΜΟΡΦΩΝΟΝΤΑΣ ΤΙΣ ΒΑΛΚΑΝΙΚΕΣ ΠΡΩΤΕΥΟΥΣΕΣ: ΕΡΕΥΝΗΤΙΚΗ
ΠΡΟΤΑΣΗ
Miloš R. Perović

Σύµφωνα µ’ ένα πρόσφατο άρθρο της Wall Street Journal, τόσα πολλά µουσεία
έχουν ιδρυθεί τις τελευταίες δύο δεκαετίες που οι επιµελητές τους έχουν στερέψει
από ιδέες για εκθέσεις. Ενώ η διαπίστωση αυτή φαίνεται να έχει µια δόση
υπερβολής, εµείς θα µπορούσαµε εδώ να προτείνουµε µια έκθεση για ένα θέµα
το οποίο δεν έχει ακόµα ερευνηθεί, ένα γοητευτικό πεδίο γνωστό µόνο σε λίγους
ειδικούς της τέχνης του αστικού σχεδιασµού: τη διαµόρφωση των Βαλκανικών
πόλεων.

Σχέδια που έγιναν για το Λονδίνο, το Παρίσι και τη Βιέννη, για παράδειγµα, έχουν
καλυφθεί µε πληρότητα από τη βιβλιογραφία και τις εκθέσεις. Δυτικοί
επιστήµονες και επιµελητές, όπως είναι φυσικό, τείνουν να προωθούν
περισσότερο το υλικό που έχουν στα χέρια τους παρά να µελετούν
αποµακρυσµένες πόλεις, µερικές από τις οποίες µάλιστα ήταν µισοκρυµµένες
πίσω από το Σιδερούν Παραπέτασµα ή έχουν περιγραφεί σε γλώσσες ελάχιστα
γνωστές πέρα από τα Βαλκάνια. Αυτό είναι µια πραγµατικότητα µολονότι δύο
διαπρεπείς αρχιτέκτονες και πολεοδόµοι µε διεθνή σταδιοδροµία, ο Γιώργος
Κανδύλης και ο Κωνσταντίνος Δοξιάδης προέρχονται από αυτή την περιοχή. Οι
Βαλκάνιοι επιστήµονες δεν είχαν τη δυνατότητα να µελετήσουν και να εκθέσουν
το υλικό αυτό για ποικίλους λόγους: έλλειψη οικονοµικών µέσων, και το γεγονός
ότι πολλά από τα αρχειακά τεκµήρια είναι διασκορπισµένα στην Ευρωπαϊκή
επικράτεια, στην οποία οι περισσότεροι Βαλκάνιοι επιστήµονες δεν µπορούσαν
να ταξιδέψουν εύκολα για ερευνητικούς σκοπούς. Προσχέδια, σχέδια,
πολεοδοµικοί χάρτες και προοπτικά σχέδια που έγιναν από δυτικούς
συµβούλους είναι διασκορπισµένα σε αρχεία στο Παρίσι, τις Βρυξέλες, το
Μόναχο, το Βερολίνο, τη Βιέννη, το Λονδίνο και σε πολλές άλλες πόλεις.

143
Κατά την τελευταία δεκαετία τρεις µεγάλες εκθέσεις για τις Δυτικές και
Κεντροευρωπαϊκές πόλεις και την αξία τους, µε αντίστοιχους καταλόγους και
εκδόσεις, πραγµατοποιήθηκαν χωρίς να γίνει οποιαδήποτε µνεία για τα
Βαλκάνια. Οι εκθέσεις και οι κατάλογοι είναι: Η Πόλη: Τέχνη και αρχιτεκτονική
στην Ευρώπη, 1870-1993, Παρίσι Κέντρο Γ. Ποµπιντού, 1993· Μαθαίνοντας την
Πόλη: Πολεοδοµικός Σχεδιασµός στη Βόρεια Ευρώπη, 1900-2000, Ρότερνταµ,
1997· και Διαµορφώνοντας τη Μεγάλη Πόλη: Μοντέρνα Αρχιτεκτονική, 1890-
1937, Μόναχο, 1999.

Τώρα που υπάρχει µεγαλύτερη σταθερότητα και λιγότερος αυταρχισµός στα

Βαλκάνια, και που η Ευρωπαϊκή Ένωση επεκτείνεται και υποστηρίζει τον
πολιτισµό, είναι µια ευνοϊκή συγκυρία για να επανασυνδεθεί η περιοχή µε την
υπόλοιπη Ευρώπη και να διεκδικήσει µια ουσιαστική παρουσία στη διευρυµένη
ιστορία των πόλεων. Σύµφωνα µε τα παραπάνω προτείνουµε ένα εκτεταµένο
ερευνητικό πρόγραµµα που θα αφορά σε µια συγκριτική µελέτη των Βαλκανικών
πόλεων, έναν κατάλογο και µια περιοδική έκθεση, και τέλος µια έκδοση για τις
«Πρωτεύουσες και τα µεγάλα περιφερειακά κέντρα της Βαλκανικής
χερσονήσου».

144
PARTICIPANTS

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146
Anca Bratuleanu, Romania
PhD Architect, Professor
University of Architecture and Town Planning «Ion Mincu», Bucharest.

Curriculum Vitae

Studies
1973 Diploma of Architecture, Institute of Architecture «Ion Mincu», Bucharest.
1992 PhD in Architecture, Institute of Architecture «Ion Mincu», Bucharest.

Present Position
Professor of History and Theory of Architecture and Cultural Heritage. University
of Architecture and Town Planning «Ion Mincu», Bucharest.

Professional & Academic Activities

2003 Research program in Lviv (Ukraine) about Polish-Ukrainian influences on
Romanian Architecture of the 17th century.
2000-2002 Research on the Architecture of Timisoara (Romania) during the
Interwar and on the Protection of Architectural Heritage of the 20th century,
in the frame of the program «Protection of 1918-1940 Architectural
Heritage in the Plain of Tisza; Regional Identity in Modern Interventions,
Open Society Foundation, Prague.
2000 Recognised as expert in the Conservation of Monuments by the Romanian
Ministry of Culture.
1999 Romanian expert in the meeting entitled: «Cultural landscapes in Eastern
Europe», organized by World Heritage Centre of Unesco, Bialystok,
Poland.

Member of international organizations for the Protection and Conservation of

Cultural Heritage.
Member of the International competition «Isola del Fiume”, Italy, April 2004.

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Member of the Judge Committee for the Biennale of the Romanian Union of
Architects, Bucharest 2002.
Advisor for programs in the field of Town Planning and Architectural
Conservation (since 1990.)
Author of about 10 building projects.
Studies in the History of Architecture and Modern Intervention.

Researches – Publications
Rumanian Princely and Nobiliary Courts. The 17th and 18th century Walachia
(Romanian-English edition), Bucharest, 1997.
University editions about Romanian Architecture.
Translation of books and texts on the History of Town Planning and Architecture.

Languages French, English, Italian.

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Nikolaos Th. Cholevas, Greece
PhD Architect, Professor
National Technical University of Athens

Curriculum Vitae

Nikolaos Th. Cholevas is an architect who graduated from the University of

Rome in 1971 with qualification in the Conservation and Restoration of
Monuments (University of Rome 1979). In 1984 he received a doctorate by the
Polytechnic School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1984).

He is professor at the Faculty of Architecture of the National Technical University

of Athens since 1975, in which he is teaching Architectural Morphology and
Rythmology. He has published several articles in Greek and international
journals and is the author of fifteen books, the most important of which are:
Geometrical Tracings and Art (1980), Architect Chr. Hansen in Trieste (1982),
Architect Panos N. Tselepis (1983), Introduction to the work of architect Sotirios
I. Magiasis (1987), Architect B.G. Tsagris (1987), Architect Angelos I. Siagas
(1992), Interwar Architecture in the Balkans (1994), Architecture “in transition” in
Interwar Athens (1998) and Scenography in cooperation with Mrs Af.
Papadimitriou (1999).

In 1989 he was decorated by the President of Italian Republic with the golden
Cross of the Regiment of Merit. Since 1992 he is member of ICCROM and
elected vice president in 1997. In 2002 he was honoured as doctor honoris by
the University of Belgrade. During the academic year 2001-2002 he lectured
Architectural Morphology and Rythmology at the Polytechnic School of the
Democretian University of Thrace.

In November 2003 he was honoured by the Italian Republic with the Official

149
medal of the Regiment of Merit. He was member of the Central Council of
Modern Monuments of the Greek Ministry of Culture since October 2005.

150
Dragana Ćorović, Serbia
Architect, teaching assistant
Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade

Curriculum Vitae

Dragana Ćorović (b. 1964) is a teaching assistant at the Department of History

and Theory of Architecture and Art at the Faculty of Architecture, University of
Belgrade. At the moment she is attending Ph. D. studies at the Faculty of
Architecture, Belgrade. She was an editor of professor Milos R. Perovic’s book
Serbian 20th Century Architecture (Belgrade, 2003). Dragana Ćorović took part
at the International Conference Architecture and Urbanism at the Turn of the
Third Millennium, held in Belgrade in 1996. Her field of interest is the urban
development of Belgrade in the 19th and 20th centuries.

151
Helen Fessas-Emmanouil, Greece
PhD Architect, Professor
the National University of Athens

Curriculum Vitae

Studies
1967 Graduate of Architecture, National Technical University of Athens
1991 PhD in Architecture, National Technical University of Athens

Fields of specialization
Research and history of Neohellenic Architecture –in particular that of the 20th
century– in the context of Balkan and World History of Architecture
Architectural and urban history of 20th century Athens
History of theatre architecture and stage design

Present Position
Professor at the Department of Theatre Studies of the National University of
Athens. She teaches History of Theatre Architecture and Stage Design.

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Professional and Academic Activities
Since 1980 Research in Greek and European archives and libraries on:
architects-planners of 19th and 20th century who worked in Greece and on
Greek architects-planners who studied and/or worked abroad.
1979-1987 Guest editor of three special issues in bilingual –Greek and
English– annual reviews: (a) “Education and School Buildings”,
Architecture in Greece, 13/1979; (b) “Monumentality in Postwar
Architecture”, Design + Art in Greece, 15/1984; and (c) “On the History of
Neohellenic Architecture and Town Planning”, Design + Art in Greece,
18/1987.
1989-1993 Design and supervision of the restoration and interior renovation of
a heritage art déco building in Plaka.
1991 Participation in the 5th International Exhibition of Architecture at the
Venice Biennale as curator for Greece, responsible for the exhibition "New
Public Buildings by S. and D. Antonakakis, A. Tombazis and N.
Valsamakis".
1997-1999 Consultant and coordinator of three research programs, financed
by the National University of Athens, on the bibliography of the following
historical and modern buildings or complexes: (a) Athens University (1839-
1864, architect Christian Hansen); (b) the Athens University Club (1926,
architect Alexandros Nicoloudis); (c) the Athens University School of
Medicine (1929-1934, architect Emmanuel Kriezis); (d) the Athens
University Campus, Zografou (1970s-1990s).
1998 Member of the Greek Ministry of Culture Committee for the organisation of
a Meeting on the “Protection of Modern Interwar Buildings in Athens”.
1999, 2004 Curator of two touring exhibitions "Greek Stage - Costume
Designers and Ancient Drama", organized by the University of Athens and
the Greek Ministry of Culture (1999) and “Dance and Theatre. From
Isadora Duncan to the postmodern dance groups”, organized by the
University of Athens and the Municipality of Athens (2004). These
exhibitions were the products of original research of 60 and 80 graduate

153
 and post-graduate students, directed by the curator and were
complemented by big catalogues-books.
2002 Responsible for the research and writing, in collaboration with architect
Tina Karapiperi, of all texts for the Greek participation in the international
CD-ROM “Discovering contemporary architecture in Paris, London and
Athens”, which was produced by the French firm ARVHA, the British firm
Anne Thorne Architects Partnership (ATAP) and the Greek firm "Omada
80" Consulting Architects and Urban Planners - Sotiris N. Papadopoulos,
under the European Union’s "Culture 2000" programme.
Since 2004 Consultant of the Bureau of Architectural Research of the Academy
of Athens.
2005 Member of the Committee of the Bureau of Architectural Research of the
Academy of Athens for the Inter-Balkan Program “The Balkan Cities from
the 19th to the 21st century: Urban planning evolution and the modern
architectural heritage”.

Publications
Author of numerous articles published in scientific and professional journals.
Author of ten books, the most important of which are:
1987 Ideological and Cultural Issues in the Architecture of Modern Greece,
1827-1940 (Athens, bilingual – Greek and English).
1993 Public Architecture in Modern Greece, 1720-1940 (Papasotiriou, Athens
1993, bilingual – Greek and English).
1994 Theatre Architecture in Modern Greece, 1720-1940 (sponsored by the J.F.
Costopoulos Foundation and the European Cultural Centre of Delphi,
1994, 2 volumes), which was awarded an Athens Academy prize in 1995.
2001 Essays on Neohellenic Architecture (sponsored by the J.F. Costopoulos
Foundation, Athens 2001, bilingual –Greek and English). This book was
awarded a honourable mention by the International Academy of
Architecture (Interarch) in the book/journals competition of the 10th World
Triennial of Architecture, Sofia, 2003.
2005 Twelve Greek Architects of the Interwar Period (written in collaboration

154
 with Emmanuel V. Marmaras), Crete University Press, Athens, 2004.
2006 An Architect’s vision. Pericles Sakellarios (written in collaboration with
Sakellariou-Herzog), Potamos Publishers, Athens 2006.

Foreign languages English, French and German

155
Aleksandar Ignjatović, Serbia
Dr. Architect, Teaching assistant
Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade

Curriculum Vitae

Studies

1991-1998 Graduate studies, Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade

1998-1999 Specialist studies in Culture studies, history and theory, AAEN

(Alternative Academic Educational Network), Belgrade

1998-2000 Postgraduate studies in history and theory of art and architecture,

Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade; Master of Architecture

2003-2005 Work on PhD thesis.

Present Position
Teaching assistant, Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade

Publications
“Art in Serbia in the XX Century” (chapters on architecture), H. W. and Anthony
F. Janson, History of Art, Serbian edition (New York: Harry Abrams, and
Varaždin: Stanek, 2005).
“The Museum of Prince Paul: Architecture and Cultural Identity”, Museum of
Prince Paul of Yugoslavia, (2005; book to be published in 2006).
“Policy of representing the Yugoslavism: the National Pavilion on the World
Exhibition in Paris 1937“, Godišnjak za društvenu istoriju, Beograd (2005).
“ The Church of Ascention in Orlovat and the Sokol Hall in Zrenjanin“, DaNS, 45,
Novi Sad (2004), 36-37.
“Architecture as Discourse“, DaNS, 45, Novi Sad (2004), 34.
“Two Belgrade Houses of Dragiša Brašovan: the Discount Bank and the House
of Aleksa Pavlović“, Heritage, V, Beograd (2004), 119-133.

156
“Szilárd Brassován Forgotten“, DaNS, 44, Novi Sad (2003), 52-53.
Architect Dragiša Brašovan: the Formative Years, (Beograd: Zadužbina
Andrejević, 2003).
“Central European Context in the Early Work of Dragiša Brašovan“, Godišnjak
grada Beograda, XLIX-L, Beograd (2002-2003), 143-167.

157
Petar Iokimov, Bulgaria
M.A. Architect, Em. Senior Research Associate
Centre for Architectural Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Curriculum Vitae
Graduate of the Higher Institute of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Sofia,
Bulgaria. Since 1972 he has worked as a research associate at the Institute for
Theory and History of Town Planning and Architecture (at present Centre for
Architectural Studies), Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. There, in 1989 he has
defended his dissertation for the degree of a Senior Research Associate in the
field of history of architecture, 19th- 20th century. Author of six monograph
research studies on the history of Bulgarian architecture, 19th-20th century.

Since 1989 he works together with Dr Ljubinka Stoilova. They were grantees
after competitions of the Central European University in Prague, the Czech
Republic, for the comparative culturological study Development of the Eastern
Orthodox Temple in Bulgaria from the Mid-19th Century Until the Present (1992-
95, team leader: P. Iokimov) and for the project Regional Reflections of the
Modern Movement in Bulgaria Between the Two World Wars. The Contribution of
Women (1997-2000, team leader: L. Stoilova). Both also worked in teams on
research projects financed after competition procedures by the National Science
Fund, Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science, as follows: Architecture and
Town Planning of the Third Bulgarian Kingdom, mid-19th – mid-20th century
(1994-2000, team leader: P. Iokimov), and Bulgarian-Austrian Relations and
Influence in the Field of Architecture at the late 19th century until the WW I (1996-
1999 team leader: L. Stoilova) with exhibitions on the topic in Sofia (1997),
Vienna, Austria (1998), Prague, The Czech Republic (2000).
Compilers of 17 evaluation case studies and registration fiches (10 of them in
collaboration) on Modern architecture buildings in Bulgaria (kept at the Archive of
the International Specialist Committee/ Registers of DOCOMOMO International).
Co-authors of eight documentary exhibitions and participants in more than 20

158
national and international conferences and workshops. Authors of papers,
published in scientific editions in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, USA, Italy,
Romania a/o. Co-authors (with Prof. DSc. M.Arch. M. Koeva) of the book Eastern
Orthodox Churches within the Bulgarian Territories (15th – 20th century),
Academic Publishing House, Sofia (2002); Co-authors (P. Iokimov – main text, L.
Stoilova – references) of the book Secession and Bulgarian Architecture, Sofia,
Arch & Art Publ. House (2004).

Ljubinka Stoilova, Bulgaria

PhD, M.A. Architect, Research Associate
Centre for Architectural Studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences

Curriculum Vitae
Graduate of the Higher Institute of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Sofia,
Bulgaria (1977). A doctoral student of theory and history of 19th and 20th century
architecture at the Institute for Theory and History of Town Planning and
Architecture (at present Centre for Architectural Studies), Bulgarian Academy of
Sciences (1984-89). Part-time research associate of the Centre for Architectural
studies, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences on projects financed by the National
Science Fund, Bulgarian Ministry of Education and Science (1994-99). Since
2002 she has worked as a secretary of a UNESCO-ROSTE supported project for
Cooperation of scientists from South-East European countries, hosted by the
Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.

Memberships for both:

• Co-founders and coordinators (1994-2000) of the Bulgarian Working Party
of the DOCOMOMO International (Documentation and conservation of
buildings, sites and neighbourhoods of the Modern Movement) which was
settled in Eindhoven, The Netherlands and since 2002 in Paris, France (In
2002-2005 P. Iokimov was its President).
• Union of Scientists in Bulgaria, History Section (since 2001);

159
• Union of Bulgarian Architects (UBA, 1984-2002);
• Association of Architectural Science and Education within UBA (L. Stoilova
- Secretary, 1992-2000, P. Iokimov – Chairman, 1992-2005);
• Society of Historians of East European and Russian Art and Architecture
(SHERA, USA, 1998-2005);
• Bulgarian Association of University Women, Sofia University (L. Stoilova -
since 2004).

160
George P. Lavvas (1935-2006), Greece
PhD Architect, Professor Emeritus, Member of the Academy of Athens

Curriculum Vitae

Studies
1958 University of Athens, Graduate of the History & Archaeology Department
1969 Federal Polytechnic School of Zurich, M.A. in Architecture
1971 Federal Polytechnic School of Zurich, PhD in Architecture

Professional & Academic Activities

1968-2003 Academic activity and teaching in universities in Greece and abroad

Contribution to the protection and rehabilitation of cultural properties

1973-2006 Member of the International & Greek Department of
ICOMOS/UNESCO
1976-1978 President of the Committee for the protection of Ano Polis of
Thessaloniki
1977 President of the Committee for the protection of the Old Town of Xanthi
1984-1985 President of the Ethnological-Folklore Museum of Macedonia
1984-1988 President of the Centre for Byzantine Researches, Aristotle University
of Thessaloniki
1982-1987 Member of the Board of the Centre for Preservation of the Heritage of
the Holy Mount
1984-1999 Member of the Committee for the Conservation of the Monuments of
Acropolis (CCMA)
1985-2006 Expert of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem and member of the International
Committee of Experts for the works at the Holy Church of Resurrection
of Jerusalem. Excavation of the shrine of the Calvary
1982-1989 Architect in head of the works for the restoration of “Villa Kapantzi” in
Thessaloniki, now Gallery of the National Bank of Greece
1984-2006 Surrogate member of the Central Archaeological Council of the Greek

161
 Ministry of Culture
2000-2006 Member of the Committee of the Greek Ministry of Culture for the
Southern slope of Acropolis
2000-2006 Member of the Central Council of Modern Monuments of the Greek
Ministry of Culture
1972-1974 Architect of the Church of Saint Paul of the Orthodox Centre of the
Ecumenical Patriarchate at Champésy Geneva
1993-2006 Member of the Technical Council of the Academy of Athens
2001-2006 Member of the Judge Committee of the Architectural Competition for
the Archibishop’s Church at Tirana (Albania)

Research – Publications
Author of books and articles in Greek and foreign journals (about 125) on the History
of Architecture and Art, Town-planning and Protection of Cultural
Heritage
Participation at radio and TV emissions and articles in newspapers on the protection
of cultural heritage
Member of Scientific Societies in Greece and abroad
Corresponding member of the German Archaeological Institute, Berlin

Participation in programs and activities of cultural character

Scientific director of the research program of the Centre of Byzantine Researches
(Aristotle University of Thessaloniki) concerning the Corpus of Monuments of
Thessaloniki.
Scientific director of the research program of the University of Thessaloniki,
concerning the Archives of Monuments of the region of Central Macedonia
and Holy Mount.
Scientific advisor and national representative of the programs for the Cultural Heritage
of the European Committee.
Expert for the works of conservation and rehabilitation of the Greek-Orthodox

162
 Monuments and Shrines of Palestine. Archaeologist in head of the
excavation of the Holy Shrine of “Kathisma” of Virgin Mary, Jerusalem.

Languages German, English, French.

163
Emmanuel V. Marmaras, Greece
PhD Architect-Urban Planner, Professor
Department of Geography of the University of the Aegean

Curriculum Vitae
Emmanuel V. Marmaras was born in Athens in 1947. He studied architecture at
the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), from which he graduated in
1972. In 1986 he was awarded a doctorate by the Department of Urban and
Regional Planning at the NTUA, School of Architecture. His thesis had the
subject: “The urban apartment building in interwar Athens: The beginning of the
intensive exploitation of urban land”; in 1993, he received a doctorate (PhD) from
the Faculty of Social Sciences (Department of Economic and Social History) at
the University of Leicester in Britain, where he wrote his thesis on urban history
(“Central London under Reconstruction Policy and Planning, 1940-1959”). His
main research interests are: urban geography, town planning, urban
development, urban and planning history, preservation and protection of historic
urban environment, capital cities (mainly Athens and London), interwar planning
and architecture in Greece, Cycladic settlements, journey literature.

He is a professor at the Department of Geography of the University of the

Aegean, in which he has taught, among others courses: Introduction to Town
Planning, Urban Geography, Urban and Planning History, History of Geography,
Historical Geography and Geography of Housing,. He was head of the
Department of Geography (2002-2004), and is currently serving as chairman of
the Hellenic Planning and Urban History Association for a three-year term (2003-
2006).

He has published a considerable number of articles in Greek and international

scholarly journals and in the daily press, and several books. The Technological
Cultural Foundation of ETVA published his book The Urban Apartment Building
in Interwar Athens: The beginning of the intensive exploitation of urban land

164
(1991, in Greek), the Pedagogical Institute published Protecting the Cultural
Heritage (1999, in cooperation with St. Rapti and El. Stamatiou, in Greek)
Ellenika Grammata published Planning and Urban Space: Theoretical
approaches and facets of Hellenic urban geography (2002, in Greek) and
Forgotten Mountains: Ten mountain trails and climbs in Greece (2005, in Greek),
Anavasi Editions published his book Travels in the Mediterranean (2002, in
Greek) and Crete University Press published his book Twelve Greek Architects
of the Interwar Period (2005, in cooperation with Helen Fessas-Emmanouil,
bilingual book: Greek-English). One more book of his is currently in the
publishing process: The Mont Parnes Hotel: A story of mountain architecture, by
Kerkyra Editions (in Greek).

165
Ayşe Nur Ökten, Turkey
PhD in Economics, Professor
Faculty of Architecture, Yildiz Technical University

Curriculum Vitae
Current Status:
Full professor at Yildiz Technical University
Head of the Division of Regional Planning in the Department of Urban and
Regional Planning, Faculty of Architecture
Member of the Faculty Executive Board
Director of the Centre for Architectural and Urban Research and Applications

PhD in Economics (at the Division of Sociology within the Faculty of Economics),
Istanbul University, Istanbul
Dissertation: Social Mobility and Stratification in the Ottoman Society
Assistant Professor (yardımcı doçent), regional planning, Yildiz Technical
University, Istanbul
Associated Professor (dozent; doçent), regional planning
(Title of the main work: The role of small scale enterprises in urban
employment)
Full Professor (Profesör), regional planning, Yildiz Technical University
(Title of the main work: The planner’s dilemma in a less developed
economy)

Selected papers and publications:

Ökten, A. et.al., A Polarized Small-Region Model for Economic, Social and
Spatial Organisation: The Regional Development Plan for Erzurum-
Erzincan-Bayburt (Ekonomik, Toplumsal, Mekansal örgütlenme için Dar
Bölgeli Polarize Model: Erzurum, Erzincan, Bayburt Bölgesel Gelişme
Planı) I-IV, İstanbul: UNDP and YTU, May 2005, ISBN: 975-461-396-6.

Ökten, A. et.al., Strategic Plan For Disaster Mitıgation In Istanbul (Istanbul

166
 Deprem Master Plan), www.ibb.gov.tr, 2003.

“Post-Fordist Work, Political Islam and Women in Urban Turkey”, in Women and
Work in the Middle East and North Africa, M. Cinar (ed.), New York: JAI-
Elsevier, 2001.

“Erkeklerin kentinden kadınların kentine. Kent, değişimin de kaynağı” (From the

city of men to the city of women - The city is the source of change),
Kadinlar Dünyası, No. 2, Nov. 1999, 5-8.

“City of Conflict, Apathy and Amnesia”, A. Ökten, The Mediterranean City:

Between Co-existence and Conflict, The Forum for Mediterranean
Cultures, Jerusalem: December 16-17, 1998.

“Arazi Kullanımındaki Değişikliğin Getirdiği Yönetsel ve Toplumsal Sorunlar”

(Administrative and social problems caused by the changing land use
pattern), A. Ökten, N. Vidinlioğlu, B. Şengezer, H. Kansu, Y. Evren, The
Symposium on Planning Problems in Metropolitan Areas, Istanbul: Oct.
15-16, 1998.

“Anadolu Kaplanlarinin Kentleşmeye Etkileri – Globalleşme Üstüne Düşünceler”

(“The effect of the “Anatolian Tigers” on the urbanization in Anatolia”), A.
Ökten, B. Şengezer, H. Kansu, 8th National Congress of Regional
Planning, Istanbul: 24-25 Sept., 1998.

“Spatial implications of the organisation of production in the automotive industry

Turkey”, A. Ökten, B. Şengezer, N. Çamlıbel, Y. Evren, 38th European
Regional Science Association Congress, Vienna: Aug.28-Sept.1, 1998.

“Fordizmden Postfordizme Geçişte Değişen Kentsel Kademelenme ve Yerel

Gelişme; Türk Otomotiv Sanayii Örneği”, (Changing urban hierarchy and
local development accompanying the transition from Fordism to post-
Fordism; the case of the Turkish automotive industry), A. Ökten, B.
Şengezer, F.B. Yaren, N. Çamlıbel, Y. Evren, 6th National Congress of
Regional Planning, Ankara: Oct. 17-18, 1996.

Araştırma Yöntemleri (Social Research Methods), Istanbul: YTU, 1994.

167
“Social Determinants of Female Labor Force and Participation in the Informal
Sector” (Frauenarbeit im Informellen Sektor- Untersuchungen in Istanbul
und Bursa), Angewandte Sozialgeographie Nr. 30 , Universität Augsburg,
1993.

Fields of research and interest:

Courses:
Economic sociology * Urban sociology
Economic and social geography * Techniques -Methods of Analysis
Regional development * Regional Planning (studio)
Informal economy *Methodology (Comparative analysis of
paradigms)
Female employment
SMEs

168
Miloš R. Perović, Serbia
PhD Architect-Urban Planner, Professor
Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade

Curriculum Vitae
Studies
Diploma of Architecture and Town Planning (Belgrade, Athens)
PhD at the Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade

Present Position
Professor of History of Modern Architecture, University of Belgrade

Professional & Academic Activities

Teaching experience in universities and institutes of Europe and USA

Research – Publications
Computer Atlas of Belgrade, Belgrade 1976
Dialogues with the Delians, Ljubljana, 1978
Lessons of the past, Belgrade 1985, 2000
4-volume History of Modern Architecture in the world (1750-present), Belgrade,
1997-2004
Research into the Urban Structure of Belgrade, Serbian-English edition, Belgrade
2002
Serbian 20th Century Architecture. From Historicism to Second Modernism,
Belgrade, Architektonski fakultet Univerziteta u Beogradu, 2003
Articles in scientific and professional journals.

Exhibitions
One man exhibitions of his experimental town planning projects in Ljubljana
(1977), Zagreb (1978), Belgrade (1978), Paris (1981), Dublin (1981) and the

169
Gallery of the Royal Institute of British Architects in London (1986)

Languages English

170
Georges Prevelakis, Greece
PhD Architect-Geographer, Professor
of Human and Regional Geography at the Sorbonne (Paris 1).

Curriculum Vitae
Georges Prevelakis was born in Athens in 1949. He studied at the Athens
College, the Athens Technical University and the Sorbonne. An Architect by
training, in Athens he worked as an urban planner and taught Geography and
Planning at the Athens Technical University from 1977 to 1984. Since 1984 he
teaches at the Sorbonne. While in France, he developed an interest in Political
and Cultural Geography. His book on Balkan Cultures and Geopolitics has been
reprinted many times and translated in three languages. He recently published a
book on Athens. His other research interests include Diasporas, European
Geopolitics, the relationship between space and identity and the symbolic role of
Urban Landscapes.

Since 2003 he is Full Professor of Human and Regional Geography at the

Sorbonne (Paris 1). During 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 he taught at the Fletcher
School as the second holder of the Constantine Karamanlis Chair in Hellenic and
Southeastern European Studies.

171
Violette Rey, France
Professeur E.N.S. Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Lyon

Curriculum Vitae
Née Mollard, le 09/06/1943 à Grenoble, France.
Mariée, mère de famille.

Carrière professionnelle
1967-1969 Chercheur de Ille cycle en Roumanie,
1969-1970 Professeur au Lycée classique J. Amyot de Melun,
1970- 1983 Assistante puis Maître-Assistante de géographie à l'Université Paris
l, avec en 1978-1980, un détachement au CNRS, sur poste
d'accueil de chargé de recherche,
1983- 1986 Maître de Conférences à l'Université Paris 1,
depuis 1986 Professeur de l'École Normale Supérieure, ENS Fontenay - St
Cloud, et Professeur membre de l'École doctorale de l'Université
de Paris 1,
depuis 1998 responsable du laboratoire GEOPHILE, laboratoire composante de
l’UMR 8504,
depuis sept 2000 installation de l’ENS Lettres §Sciences humaines à Lyon,
de sept 2001 à juin 2004 responsable des Relations Internationales de l’ENS
LSH.

Titres et Distinctions
Ancienne Élève de l'École Normale Supérieure, Fontenay aux Roses, 1963-1967
Agrégée de géographie, 1967,
Docteur de Troisième Cycle, mention Très Bien, 1969
Docteur d'État, mention Très Honorable, Félicitations du jury, 1980

1980 Prix Olivier de SERRES, Ministère de l'Agriculture

172
1984 Médaille de bronze du CNRS
1991 Professeur d'honneur de l'Université de Iasi
1993 Membre d’honneur de l'Académie Roumaine
1997 Membre correspondant de l'Académie d’Agriculture de France.

Publications de Violette Rey

Professeur École Normale Supérieure Lettres § Sciences Humaines, Lyon
France

Ouvrages
Rey V., 1975, Une vocation urbaine, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.
Rey V., 1975, La Roumanie, essai d'analyse régionale, SEDES, Paris. Rey V.,
1982, Besoin de terre des agriculteurs, Economica, Paris. Rey V.,
1985, L'Europe de l'Est, Documentation Française, Paris.
Rey V., 1989, Régions et pouvoirs régionaux en Europe de l'Est et en URSS,
190p. en collab., Masson, Paris.
Rey V. (dir), 1993, Géographies et campagnes, Mélanges J Bonamour, 365p.
Publications ENS, France.
Rey V. (dir), 1994, Tchéco - Slovaquie : fragmentations, recompositions, 190p.
Publications ENS, France
Carter F., Jordan P., Rey V. (dir), 1995, A New Central Europe, Stuttgart, Peter
Lang, 380p., 2de édition 1998
Rey V., (dir), 1996, Nouvelles campagnes d'Europe centre orientale, CNRS
Éditions, coll. Espaces et milieux, 240 p.
Rey V., 1996, Europes orientales, 208p. in volume I0 de la Géographie
Universelle, Belin - Reclus.
Rey V., 1998, Territoires centre - européens, dilemmes et défis d'Europe, Paris,
La Découverte, 260 p.
Auriac F., Rey V., 1998, Atlas de France. Volume 8 : l’Espace rural, Paris, La
Documentation française, 128 p.
Bachvarov M., Rey V., 1999, Lexique de géopolitique, Sofia (en bulgare)

173
Rey V., (dir) 2000, Atlas de la Roumanie, Paris, La Documentation française,
176 p
Rey V. (dir) 2002, Atlasul Romaniei, Bucarest, ed. RAO, 180 p.
Rey V., (dir) 2004, L’élargissement de l’Europe, réformes territoriales en Europe
centrale et orientale, Paris, L’Harmattan, 250 p.
Rey V., Saint Julien Th., 2005, Territoires d’Europe, la différence en partage,
Lyon, ENS-Editions, 350p.

Articles dans des ouvrages ou des revues à comité de lecture (depuis

1998) :
Rey V. et al., 1998, “Migrations and the main protagonists of transition: a stake in
the development of Romania”, in W. Heller, Romania, migrations
and perspective of regional development. Südosteuropa Studies
62, Munich.
Rey V., Saint-Julien T., 1998, “The local government of the capital’s areas,
stakes and dilemma”, in Ianos I., Pumain D., - Racine J.B. (eds),
Integrated urban systems and sustainability of urban life,
Bucuresti, Ed. Technical, 381-388.
Rey V., 1998, “Rural settlements in transition and countryside crisis in Central
Eastern Europe”, Geojournal, 2,12p.
Rey V., 1998, “L'étonnant retour paysan en Roumanie”, Communication à
l'Académie d'Agriculture du 26/11/97, compte rendu publié dans
nol.
Rey V., 2000, “Recompositions agricoles dans l’Europe de l’entre deux”,
Enquètes rurales, 7, 57-74
Rey V., 2001, “Choix de vote et lieux de vie : analyse géographique des résultats
electoraux des villages et des villes en Roumanie, 1992-1996”,
Belgeo, 1-2, 137-147.

174
Vassilis Sgoutas, Greece
Architect
Ex President of the International Union of Architects (UIA)

Curriculum Vitae
Architect, in private practice, with significant projects in Greece and the Middle
East.
Numerous awards in competitions. Works include public buildings and in
particular auditoria, commercial buildings, pharmaceutical plants,
hospitals, remodelling of historic buildings and landscaping.

Elected to several offices in Greece and abroad.

Until 2002, President of the International Union of Architects (UIA) and earlier its
Secretary General.
Held various posts on the Greek Architects Association (SADAS).
Is a member of the Technical Chamber of Greece representative body since
1984.
Actively involved, on EC committees etc., in matters related to the environment
and the disabled.
Has contributed to publications of international standards for independent living.
Honorary Fellow of the Institutes of Australia, China, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea,
Panama, Philippines, Russia and USA.
Bene Merentibus Medal (Poland), Contribution to Architecture Award (Georgia),
Insignia of the Superior Council of the Architects of Spain and Presidential
Medal of AIA (USA).
Honorary Professor of the Academies of IAA (Bulgaria) and KAA (Kazakhstan).
Honorary Member of the State Russian Academy of Architecture and
Construction Sciences.

175
176
ILLUSTRATIONS

177
178
 Athens

Stamatios Kleanthis–Eduard Schaubert, Master Plan of Athens,

1833.

Leo von Klenze, Master Plan of Athens, 1834.

Ludwig Hoffman, Master Plan of Athens, 1910.

179
 Athens

Thomas Mawson, Master Plan of Athens, 1918.

Municipality of Athens, Master Plan of Athens, 1935.

Georges Candilis, The rapid urbanization of Athens,

1940-1985.

180
 Athens

Friedrich von Gärtner, Old Palace of King Otto,

now the Greek Parliament Building, 1836-1843.

Theophilos von Hansen, National Library, 1839-1859.

Theophilos von Hansen & François-Louis-Florimond Boulanger,

Zappion Exhibition Hall, 1874-1888.

181
 Athens

Dimitris Pikionis, The picturesque landscaping of open areas

on the Acropolis Hill, 1951-1957.

Takis Zenetos, Fix Brewery, Syngrou Avenue, 1957.

Walter Gropius, Consulting architect Pericles Sakellarios, USA

Embassy, 1956-1961.

182
 Athens

Nicos Valsamakis, Lanaras’ residence, Anavyssos, Attica, 1961.

Manolis Vourekas, Prokopios Vassiliadis, Spyros Staikos,

Antonis Georgiadis etc, Hilton Hotel, 1958-1963.

John Vikelas and Associates, John Kymbritis,

The first glass and steel Tower Office Building,
1971-1972.

183
 Athens

Alexandros Tombazis, collaborating architect D. Diamantopoulos,

Difros Apartments, Marousi, 1971-1975.

Nicos Valsamakis, Alpha Bank Headquartres, 40 Stadiou St,

1978-1990.

184
 Belgrade

A. Chambon, Master Plan of Belgrade, Perspective sketch, 1914.

M. Perović, Historical core of Belgrade, Simulation of existing state,

1979-1981.

185
 Belgrade

V. Azriel, Department Store, 1907.

S. Titelbach, Aaron Levi Apartments (left) & A. Stevanović,

N. Nestorović, Merchant Stamenkovic Apartments, 1907 (right).

B. Tanazević, Telephone Exchange Building, 1908-1910.

Extended 1929.

186
 Belgrade

J. Klek, Vila Zenit, 1924-1925.

P.& B. Krstić, Pavilion of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and

Slovenes, 1925.

N. Nestorović, B. Tanazević, Technical Faculty Building, 1930.

187
 Belgrade

D. Brašovan, Royal Air Force Headquarters, Zemun, 1935.

M. Zloković, FIAT Office Buildings and Showroom, now Jugoauto,

1940.

N. Dobrović, Ministry of Defence Headquarters, 1954-1963.

188
 Belgrade

B. Bogdanović, Memorial Area at the Jasenovac Concentration Camp,

Jasenovac, 1966.

B. Bogdanović, Partisan Memorial Graveyard, Mostar, 1965.

V. Milunović & B. Mitrović, ZEPTER Building, 1996.

189
 Bucharest

Plan of Bucharest, 1770.

Plan of Bucharest, 1842.

Plan of Bucharest, 1895-1899.

191
Bucharest

Plan of Bucharest, 1931.

Bucharest Master Plan , 1935-1938.

Bucharest, aerial view, 2000.

192
 Bucharest

Ion D. Berindei, Cantacuzinos Palace,

now Museum George Enescu, 1898-1900.

Ion Mincu, Restaurant Doina, 1898-1892.

P. Antonescu, Ministry of Public Works, 1906-1910,

now Town Hall of Bucharest.

193
 Bucharest

P. Antonescu & P. Smarandescu, Adriatica (1930) and Agricola -

Fonciera Office Buildings (1928).

Rosetti Square, 1940.

A. Culina, Hotel Ambassador, 1935-1936.

194
 Bucharest

Bulevard Magheru, 1930.

Bulevard Magheru, 1930.

195
 Istanbul

Environmentally sensitive areas

(Prepared by the YTU-BU City Planning Group: SPDMI, 2003).

The locations of planned and unplanned but informally urbanized areas

(Prepared by the YTU-BU City Planning Group: SPDMI, 2003).

Land Use in Istanbul

(Prepared by the YTU-BU City Planning Group: SPDMI, 2003).

197
 Istanbul

Istanbul, City Plan detail, 1855-1863.

Residence of the mother of the Khedive of Egypt overlooking Bosphorus, 1900, Bebek.

198
 Istanbul

Jasmund A., Sirkeci Station, 1888-1890.

Raimondo d’ Aronco, Mizzi residence,

Çankaya Caddesi, Büyükada, 1894-1895.

Raimondo d’ Aronco, Project for a

building at Pera, 1898.

199
 Istanbul

K. Kyriakidis, Frej Apartment Building,

Iksender Caddesi, Büyük Hendek Sokaği,
Sişhane Sokaği, Okçu Musa Caddesi, Karaköy.

Wooden house, Kadiyoran Caddesi no 3,

Büyükada, 1900.

Istanbul, Istiklâ Caddesi, Aznavur Pasaji, 1928.

200
 Istanbul

Kemaleddin Bey, Vakif Hani IV office building,

1912-1926.

Istanbul, Central Market..

Istanbul, View of the GalatasTower and Pera

from Keratio bay.

201
 Istanbul

Bosphorus Bridge, Instanbul.

202
Sofia

203
Sofia

204
 Sofia

H. Helmer and F. Fellner, National Theatre, 1904-1907.

F. Gruenanger, Central Synagogue, 1905-1909.

205
 Sofia

L. Dalchev, Sofia University, 1906-1934.

N. Torbov, The Building of Halite, Maria Luisa Blvd

& Exarch Josef St, 1909-1910.

K. Marichkov, Imperial Hotel,

Legai Street, 1914-1920.

206
 Sofia

Tornyov, St Paraskeva Church, 1924-1930.

M. Zakh, S. Bos, Rent Offices, 1929-1930.

207
 Sources of illustrations

Architectura, No.1/4, 1996 (Romania).

Barillari D. & Godoli E., Instanbul 1900. Architecture et intérieures Art
nouveau, Paris, Seuil, 1997.
Biris, Kostas, Athens from the 19th to the 20th century (in Greek), Athens:
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Academician George P. Lavvas, President of the Organising Committee (center),
Vassilis Sgoutas, Architect, ex president of the UIA, Chairman (left),
Panagis Psomopoulos, Architect-Town Planner, Chairman (right).