The Secrets of Amalias Avenue

Do Buildings Communicate?

We stay in a time when everyone seems to be fascinated by the flexibility of machines to generate speech, which is why I used to be notably intrigued by a stroll by way of town’s heart that targeted on what it referred to as “the historic reminiscence” of buildings. It was an exercise alongside Amalias Avenue organized by Heritagent, an initiative that goals to attach residents with Athens’ architectural historical past and improve their engagement with buildings that function websites of reminiscence.

If buildings might communicate, what tales would they inform? For Konstantina Markoglou, who designed this stroll, the architectural traces we encounter within the metropolis are materials testimonies to narratives. This concept resonates with me, notably as a result of materiality has been more and more overshadowed by digitalization. If I can contact one thing, it feels extra alive to me – even when it isn’t.

We met on the café Oasis, on the entrance of Zappeion in the direction of Amalias Avenue. Our stroll started the place one other form of gathering had as soon as ended – the casual “bride market” that used to happen exterior the Resort Grande Bretagne within the late Nineteenth century. Each afternoon, this promenade was the location of a social rendezvous, a “common gossip hub, an everlasting alternate of glances, and an unceasing chatter about each acquaintances and strangers,” based on journalist Timos Moraitinis. The avenue, as soon as identified to Athenians as Pepper Tree Avenue, was later renamed Amalias Avenue. Many outstanding Greeks invested on this space, believing that the royal palace can be constructed there and hoping to safe a spot close to to that construction.

What Goal Does Every Constructing Serve?

Our first cease was at No. 42. This modernist interwar constructing options neoclassical and Artwork Deco components, in addition to many bullet holes. Should you drive by, you’re unlikely to note the holes, and whilst a pedestrian, it’s straightforward to miss the marks within the façade – remnants of gunfire from the violent clashes of December 1944. (The tales behind these holes communicate of scars a lot deeper than the marks themselves.)

Designed by architect Emmanuel Lazaridis, a proponent of rationalized fashionable classicism, this constructing additionally showcases an fascinating architectural factor: bay home windows. Some Athenian bay home windows might lengthen as a lot as 1.40 meters outward from the façade. On this constructing, nonetheless, they protruded solely 40 centimeters. It appears a 1937 regulation restricted that facet of their dimension. As Konstantina Markoglou defined, it’s necessary when taking a look at a constructing to ask questions: “The place is it situated? When was it constructed, who constructed it and why? What was its objective? What building methods had been used? What function did it play over time?”

We continued uphill alongside Amalias Avenue, stopping at No. 38, exterior the Historic Weaving College of the Society for the Schooling of Younger Girls. Inbuilt 1901 with a donation from Andreas Syngros and designed by architect Nikolaos Lyssippos, the college, which nonetheless provides weaving classes immediately, had as its unique objective a social agenda; upper-class girls of the time as soon as supplied comparable coaching to “impoverished women.” Again then, the main focus was on home schooling. In the present day, college students exhibit their works in a store on Kolokotroni Avenue.

Subsequent door, at No. 36, stands the Lykiardopoulos Mansion, a constructing designed by Konstantinos Kyriakidis. Situated on the nook of Amalias Avenue and Spyrou Tsagkari Avenue, it is likely one of the first (and most recognizable) Artwork Deco buildings in Athens. We realized that it additionally stirred controversy: a five-story constructing at a time when surrounding constructions had been a lot shorter, it was broadly criticized. Many noticed it as an conceited image of superiority, whereas some native residents lamented the lack of their unobstructed view of the jap facet of the Acropolis.

“We’ll Hold Our Donkeys There”

After wandering by way of the slim streets of Plaka, we arrived at the Anglican Church of St. Paul, a uncommon instance of neo-Gothic structure on the nook of Amalias Avenue and Filellinon Avenue. This constructing represents the brand new cultural influences launched to Greece within the mid-Nineteenth century: a mix of Bavarian and different components. Nevertheless, on the time, it was not warmly acquired by the Greeks.

Markoglou learn to us from the diary of Christiane Lüth (A Danish Lady at King Otto’s Court docket), who wrote on November 25, 1844: “The locals say, allow them to construct their church – we’ll preserve our donkeys and sheep inside it.” Simply as I let my ideas return to that point, nonetheless, I seen one thing that pulled me proper again to the current: a memorial plaque on the church flooring devoted to Stephen Saunders, the British navy attaché assassinated by the terrorist group November 17 in 2000. Saunders had been a classmate of Father Gerry, the clergyman who welcomed us inside.

In the present day, St. Paul’s is probably essentially the most outward-facing constructing we visited. It ceaselessly hosts cultural occasions, primarily musical performances, which the house enhances with its distinctive sense of solemnity.

Buildings Don’t Simply Communicate – They Sing

Our stroll concluded at the house of Angelos and Leto Katakouzenos, on the fifth flooring of No. 4. The neurologist-psychiatrist and his author spouse had been outstanding figures in Greece’s literary and inventive circles, and their residence turned Athens’ foremost literary and inventive salon.

Now a museum, the condo displays the depth and brilliance of contemporary Greek artwork. Its rooms characteristic works by famend artists resembling Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas, Gounaropoulos, Vasiliou, and Flora-Karavia – even a watercolor by Marc Chagall. These had been items from the artists themselves, tokens of gratitude for the hospitality and assist they acquired from the couple, as museum curator Sofia Peloponnisiou-Vasilakou defined.

The homeowners’ refined aesthetic sense, mixed with the inventive interventions of Yannis Tsarouchis, make this condo an everlasting tribute to city magnificence, nevertheless it has different claims to fame as effectively. Many necessary occasions that happened inside its partitions. It was right here that the well-known “{Photograph} of the Era of the ’30s” was taken. It was additionally right here {that a} reception was held to have a good time Odysseas Elytis’ Nobel Prize, and it was right here, too, that Andreas Embirikos learn excerpts from his novel “The Nice Japanese,” and the place Manos Hadjidakis performed elements of his “The Nice Erotic” music cycle for the primary time.

Because it seems, evidently buildings don’t simply communicate – they sing.