ARCHITECTURAL OVERVIEW

Modern Architects
of Greece
Dr Chitrarekha Kabre and Dimitra Baikouss

A synopsis on the magnificent

architecture constructed by
modern architects of Greece for
building on countrys historic
traditions and meeting their
contemporary needs.

20 ARCHITECTURE - Time Space & People February 2009

rchitecture is a complex art

embracing form and function,
symbol and social purpose, technique and belief. Modern architecture has
emerged against a setting of major social
and technological transformations; it has
registered a gradual shift from rural to
urban existence in the industrializing
world. It has served a multitude of interests and functions from mass housing to
the glorification of capitalist institutions,
from rarefied private villas to spaces of
sacred meaning. Architecture is rooted in
the processes and paradoxes of society,

but it also transforms these into its own

terminology; it works by parallel but different rules.
In 1911, Le Corbusier set on a long
journey through Italy, Greece, and Asia
Minor. He later called it his voyage
dOrient. On visiting the Acropolis at
Athens, he wrote: the Parthenon, this
dreadful machine makes everything
within a radius of three miles into
insignificant. The Parthenon gave him a
glimpse of an elusive absolute which
continued to haunt him. The forms of
modern architecture were more likely to

marry with some local traditions than

with
others.
The
latent
Mediterraneanism and Hellenism in
certain of Le Corbusiers works of the
1920s were not lost on those Greek
architects who, towards the end of the
decade, turned against revivalism and
embraced the new international language. This they attempted to root in
the social habits, spatial patterns and
landscape of their own country.
Analogies between the cubic white volumes and flat roofs of modern architecture and the vernaculars of the Greek
islands were not so hard to make.
Modern architecture in Greece became a
vibrant field that built on the countrys
historic traditions to meet the needs of
growing cities and towns. This article
presents brief biography of some of the
Greek architects of the postwar period
and their notable works. Among the
Greek architects who wished to seek out
some common ground between a modernist simplification and popular roots
were Dimitris Pikionis (1887-1968), Aris
Konstantinidis (1913-1993), Dimitris
Antonakakis (1933), Suzana Antonakakis
(1935), Constantinos A. Doxiadis (19131975), Alexandros Tombazis (1939) and
Kyriakos Krokos (1941-1998).

Figure 1: Elementary school at Lycabettus hill, Athens, 1931-32

DIMITRIS PIKIONIS
(1887-1968)

ested in architecture, and in 1925 undertook a lecturer position at the decoration department at the National
Technical University of Athens. He was a
founding member of the Association
of Greek Art Critics, AICA-Hellas,
International Association of Art Critics.
While Pikionis realised very little in his
sixty years of practice, and while he
never had to deal with commissions of
the socio-technological complexity that
characterises so much of our contemporary building, he nevertheless strove for
a symbiotic, ontological architecture,
where the identity of the subject and of
the society would be redeemed through
mutual reverence.

Pikionis was born in Piraeus in 1887.

After studying engineering at the polytechnic of Athens, he went to Mnich to
study painting and sculpture. In 1909 he
moved to Paris where he became inter-

Figure 2: Landscaping of the Archaeological Site around the Acropolis and Philopappou Hill,
Athens, 1954-57

Pikionis initially embraced the

Modern Movement, finding in its organic
simplicity an echo of his own reinterpretation of the Greek Neo-classical spirit. The
Elementary school on Lycabettus Hill,
Athens, was part of a school building program in the 1930s. He used reinforced
concrete, large metal windows and white
washed plaster to create simple planar
shapes gashed by strong shadow, but also
disposed the elements of the plan around
a precinct of platforms cascading down
the hill, in a manner loosely recalling the
topography of a Cycladic hill town.
The landscaping of the archaeological site around the Acropolis in 1950-57
was a vast project undertaken in the last

February 2009 ARCHITECTURE - Time Space & People 21

years of the architects life and esteemed

as a harmonious combination of architecture, natural landscape and historical
memory expressing the universality of
the Greek spirit. It includes the landscaping of a network of access roads, paths
and sidewalks leading to the Acropolis
monuments, to the Herod Atticus Theatre
and to Philopappou Hill, as well as
the integration of the church of St.
Dimitrios Loumbardiaris and a refreshment centre into the area. In this project
he utilised forms and materials from the
ancient Hellenic, Byzantine and vernacular traditions and was constructively influenced by the Japanese landscape architecture tradition.

ARIS KONSTANTINIDIS
(1913-1993)
Aris Konstantinidis,
born in Athens in
1913, was educated as an architect
in the Technical
University of
Munich between
1931 and 1936;
therefore he had
the opportunity of coming into immediate contact with the most important
architectural concepts of the modern
movement. Konstantinidis returned to
Greece in 1936 and spent some years
working for the Town Planning
Department of the city of Athens and,
after the war, for the Ministry of Public
Works. His conviction that architecture
is a social function led him to assume
the position of head of the Studies
Service of the Workers Housing
Organisation (OEK) from 1955 to 1975
and that of head of the Technical
Service of the Greek National Tourism
Organisation from 1957 to 1967. During
these years he planned and oversaw
the construction of a series of workers
houses and of hotels and was the first
22 ARCHITECTURE - Time Space & People February 2009

architect in Greece to introduce into

public works, effectively and on a large
scale, the notions of standardization in
composition and construction. Through
his work, Aris Konstantinidis created
architectural solution unique in Greece,
which gave birth to modern Greek
architecture. Konstantinidiss planning
logic comes out of the modernists
repertoire. He uses rigid grid pattern
and a design methodology clearly
indebted to modernism, but combines
modern design methods with a respect
for climatic conditions and with an
interest for the environment that give
to his buildings a unique sensitive comprehension for material and light. He
sought to harness tradition, technology, and simplicity in his work, employing clear geometries. This architecture,
standing firmly as it does on modern
precepts and on todays needs, has the
ability to assimilate the essence and not
simply the form of the architectural tradition of Greece. His works include
the Eleusis House (1938), Cin-News
Cinema, Athens (1940), various
housing developments in Greece, Hotel
Xenia, Mykonos (1960), a holiday
house, Anavyssos, near Athens (1962),

and the Museum, Komotini (1967).

Konstantinidis was also a prolific
writer and he published many books
on architecture.
The workers housing complex built
between 1955-57 in Nea Philadelphia is
one of the most authentic efforts to adapt
the principles of modern town planning
to postwar Greece. The complex was
organised in accordance with the modern
free building system on both regularly
and irregularly shaped lots. The general
disposition of the two-storey and threestorey buildings is governed by geometric clarity on the rectangular lots; on the
irregular lots, the adaptation of the buildings creates inner courtyards with asymmetrical sides. There is a systematic partition of volumes into smaller units that are
juxtaposed either at an angle or set back
from each other. The basic unit consists of
a semi-outdoor staircase with two threeroom apartments on each floor on either
side. The construction is of reinforced
concrete structural elements that follow a
strict grid defining the form of the apartments both inside and out. The faades
follow the grid of the unplastered concrete skeleton and the fill-in brickwork
walls painted in light earth tones: terra-

Figure 3: Workers Housing Complex (OEK) Nea Philadelphia, 1955-57

cotta, ochre, brown. A characteristic stylistic element of the complex, which hints
at tradition, is the projection of the roofed
balconies with the simple metal profiles
of the railings and the vertical features
that link the balconies.

PATROKLOS KARANTINOS
(1903 -1976)
Patroklos Karantinos was born in
Constantinople [now Istanbul] in 1903
and he died in Athens on 4 Dec 1976. He
studied at the School of Architecture at
the National Technical University of
Athens (191924) and worked for
Auguste Perret in Paris (19278). In
Greece he worked for the Ministry of
Education (193039) in the pioneering
programme of New School Buildings. In
1932, he became the co-founder of the
Greek group of CIAM (Congrs
Internationaux de lArchitcture Moderne).
In 1934, he organized the Exhibition of
Greek modern architecture in Athens and
in 1938 he edited Ta nea scholika ktiria, a

publication on Modernist school buildings in Greece. From 1959 to 1968 he was

Professor of Architectural Composition at
the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki.
Karantinoss schools, such as the
building (1932) at the corner of
Karyatidon and Kalisperi Streets, Athens,
are characterized by a consistent application of Modernism to elements that refer
to the Mediterranean tradition of antiquity: white prismatic volumes, regular fenestration, brises-soleil and access balconies penetrated or supported by freestanding pillars. The building is an early
Greek application of the principles of the
radical Modern Movement. It is the most
internationally publicised work of this
programme and indeed of Greek architecture during the 1930s. This school
building is in the Makrygianni region
under the Acropolis. It consists of a twostorey single volume (ground and first
floors) which contains six classrooms with
a southern orientation, an internal corridor to the north, a handicraft room on the

first floor and a cafeteria and office space

on the ground floor, which is in contact
with the main volume of the building. The
classrooms on the first floor, as provided
for by the construction programme, can
be joined together for the holding of
events. The treatment of the faades
expresses the structure of the building,
with the large windows occupying the
entire opening between the structural
features and emphasising the horizontality of the composition.
Karantinos is particularly known for
the design of many museums in Greece.
He designed the Archaeological
Museum (1933) in Herakleion, Crete,
where there is a mixture of direct and
indirect natural lighting and an
articulation of exhibition areas through
projecting or recessed prismatic volumes. He also designed Archaeological
Museum (1960) in Thessaloniki, Delphi
Archaeological Museum and Olympia
Archaeological Museum. Karantinos was
involved in expansion and renovation of
National Archaeological Museum of
Athens and Acropolis Museum.

DIMITRIS AND SUZANA

ANTONAKAKIS
Dimitris Antonakakis was born in Chania,
Crete on 22 Dec 1933. He studied at the
School of Architecture, National Technical

University of Athens (19538). He began

teaching there in 1959 and retired in
1992. He was a visiting professor at the
School of Architecture, MIT in 1994 and
1999. His wife, Suzana (Maria)
Antonakakis [ne Kolokytha] was born in
Athens on 25 June 1935, also studied at
the University (19549). In 1965 they coFigure 4: Primary School, Kalisperi and Karyatidon Sts, Athens, 1931

and closed units, and has 50cm thick

walls that define the zones. Their debt to
Dimitris Pikionis is evident in the emphasis given to movement within built space,
the creation of path-like networks of
spaces and the treatment of the courtyard as a selective collector of activities.

CONSTANTINOS A. DOXIADIS
(1913-1975)

Figure 5: Site plan of a modern housing settlement, Distomon, Greece

Figure 6: Section through a modern housing settlement, Distomon, Greece.

Figure 7: Plans of individual units of a modern

housing settlement, Distomon, Greece.

24 ARCHITECTURE - Time Space & People February 2009

founded the architectural partnership

Atelier 66.
They transformed the influences of
Konstantinidis and Pikionis into a complex system. Their work is influenced by
Aris Konstantinidiss interpretation of vernacular forms through a rigid grid system
and modern construction, as seen in the
Archaeological Museum of Chios (with
Eleni Goussi-Desylla, 1965) and the modern housing settlement (1969) at
Distomon (180 km west of Athens), probably the best example of low-rise, highdensity housing in post-war Greece. Here
the grid is transformed into a zoning
scheme that regulates the allocation of
domestic and public activities. Its form is
a result of the slope, on which it sits, similar to the fortified villages of the
Cyclades. The settlement is zoned parallel
to the contours into three divisions:
open-air spaces, semi-covered spaces,

C o n s t a n t i n o s A . Doxiadis was born

in Stenimachos [now Asenovgrad,
Bulgaria] on 14 May
1913 and he died in
Athens, on 28 June
1975. He was a Greek
Urban and Regional
Planner,
Architect,
Theorist
and
Administrator. At the outbreak of World
War I, he and his family arrived in Athens
from Bulgaria as refugees. He studied
architecture (193035) at the National
Technical University of Athens and
received a doctoral degree (1936) from
the Universitt BerlinCharlottenburg,
having presented a highly original and
controversial thesis on planning in
ancient Greece. He was Head of the Town
Planning Office of the Greater Athens
area (19379) and of the Department of
Regional and Town Planning of the
Ministry of Public Works (193945) during
the German occupation of Greece. During
the Occupation he was Chief of the
National Resistance Group, Hephaestus,
and published a magazine called
Regional Planning, Town Planning and
Ekistics, the only underground technical
publication anywhere in occupied territories. Simultaneously he was part of the
Underground Resistance movement,
preparing plans for the post-war reconstruction of Greece. At the time of
Greeces liberation in 1945, he left the
army with the rank of captain, and went
to the San Francisco Peace Conference as
a member of the Greek delegation. In

Figure 8: Original Master Plan of Islamabad 1960

1945, he also served as Greeces representative to England, France and the United
States on the problems of postwar reconstruction. After the war, as UnderSecretary and Director-General of the
Ministry of Housing and Reconstruction
(19458) and as Under-Secretary and
Coordinator of the Recovery Programme
of the Ministry of Coordination (194851),
he was the major figure in Greek reconstruction. Since 1951 Doxiadis Associates
has undertaken hundreds of projects,
most of them large-scale urban design
projects, in more than twenty countries
including Europe, Asia, Africa and the US.
One his major works is town planning
of Islamabad, the Capital of Pakistan.
Many factors influenced the decision
regarding the location of Islamabad, such
as transportation and communications,
factors of national interest, defense, economic factors, existing facilities, etc. The
nearby existing city of Rawalpindi would
offer Islamabad considerable aid in facilities and initial housing needs. The
Chaklala airport of Rawalpindi would
help air transport, the Rawal dam would
secure water supply, the existing railroad
and highway connections would serve
communication needs. All these contributed towards avoiding large invest-

ments during the first phase of development of Islamabad.

In April 1959, Doxiadis Associates
were commissioned by the University of
the Punjab to undertake the design work
of the new Campus. The problem presented to Doxiadis Associates by this
highly cultural region with a deep-rooted
tradition was one of the most complex
ever handled by his office. The various
tools, methods, processes and executive
policies were to be employed to create an
operating pattern the dynamics of which
would cater to and satisfy:
a. Partial and progressive materialization of buildings and services;
b. The transformation of traditional skills
and experiences (as in construction)
into contemporary techniques;
c. The preservation of the true essence
of traditional patterns;
d. The climate, site conditions, etc.
The investigation and analysis concluded with the adoption of a modular reference pattern on which the incorporated
sequences would eventually unfold. The
determining principles on which the total
project was to succeed was the preparation of a master programme and plan
which, within its long term framework and
as funds became available, would allow

Figure 9: Punjab University, Pakistan

independent projects to develop in an

evolutionary and additive way. In 1960
began the materialization of the first
phase of the project, the largest single
architectural undertaking in Pakistan and
probably on the Southern Continent.

KYRIAKOS KROKOS
(1941- 1998)
He was born in the island of Samos in
Greece, he studied at
the National school
of Architecture in
Athens. After his military service he lived
for one year at Paris
studying besides the painter Gianni
February 2009 ARCHITECTURE - Time Space & People 25

Figure 10: The Museum of Byzantine Culture, Thessaloniki

Tsarouxi. Coming back to Greece, he

won several architectural competitions,
one of them and the most important
is the first prize for competition of
Byzantine Museum in Thessaloniki
(1977). His work has been presented in
the 3rd architecture Biennale for public
buildings in Center Pompidou in Paris
(1990) as well as in the 5th Biennale in
Venice (1991). In Autumn 1996, he represented Greece in 6th Biennale in Venice.
He has been twice candidate for the
Mies Van der Rohe prize.
The Museum of Byzantine Culture
Thessaloniki aims in presenting various
aspects of life during the byzantine and
post-byzantine periods: art, ideology,
social structure and religion, as well as
how historical changes and the political situation were affecting peoples
everyday life. In 1989 Krokos said about

the museum:
I wanted a space within which movement would create a feeling of freedom,
stirring up the senses, and where the exhibit would be a surprise within the movement.
I wanted to avoid that coercion you feel in a
museum, when youre forced to look at a lot
of works in a specific order; because we
remember how our heart leaps when we go
into a little country church, but we usually
forget what weve seen in a museum.
The Museum of Byzantine Culture is
housed in a modern building 11,500m
wide, of which 3,000m comprise the
permanent exhibition area. It also
includes spacious and well-organised
conservation laboratories and storerooms, a small amphitheatre, a cafrestaurant and a separate wing for temporary exhibitions, a space of 300m. The
building was constructed between the

Figure 11: The Museum of Byzantine Culture Thessaloniki

26 ARCHITECTURE - Time Space & People February 2009

years 1989-1993. The building, severe

and abstemious, made with exceptionally combined modern materials and characterised by construction of high quality,
joins together elements of modernism
and of the Greek architectural heritage.
Among the best works of public architecture of the last decades in Greece, it
received a special notion by the international committee of the competition
Awards 2000 of the Hellenic Institute for
Architecture. In 2000, the Ministry of
Culture has declared it a historically listed
monument, and a work of art.

ALEXANDROS N. TOMBAZIS
(1939)
Born in India in
1939, he spent his
early childhood in
India and England
before moving permanently to Greece
where his origins
are. As a child he
wanted to be a painter, and it was his
painting teacher who first suggested the
idea of his becoming an architect.
Architecture was then for him something
abstract and difficult to comprehend, but
once the decision was taken, he never
regretted it. He graduated from the architectural school of the National Technical
University of Athens in 1962. His interest
in technology and the first oil crisis made
him turn towards the use of solar and
alternative energy sources, which have
become an integral part of his architectural design. In 1991, he was elected an

Figure 12: The Athens College Bodosakeio Elementary School

honorary fellow of the American Institute

of Architects and in 2006 he was awarded
an honorary PhD by the Aristotle
University of Thessaloniki. Alexandros
Tombazis has been awarded prizes in
more than 110 national, international or
invited competitions. Apart from those in
Greece, projects have been built in
Cyprus, Portugal, the Netherlands,
Romania, Ukraine, the United Arab
Emirates and Oman.
Today, Alexandros Tombazis divides
his time between his office, which
employs about 60 people, and travelling.
A lecture at a congress or to University
students gives him the opportunity to
express his thoughts, but also becomes
the starting block for one more trip,
which combines his basic interests
architecture, painting, photography and
through these the exploration of yet
another part of the world.
The Athens College Bodosakeio
Elementary School is one of the most
modern and comprehensive private educational facilities in the Attica basin. Built

outside the city, in the lush green environment of Mesogeion, it was the product of a systematic collaboration among
Greek architect Alexandros N. Tombazis
and Associates, Athens, US architect
Perkins and Will, Chicago and the users of
the building, i.e. administrators, faculty
and students. The concern to create a
good environment, circulation, furnishings and decoration, as well as the unconventional form of the college, was due to
these ideal design conditions. The school
complex is intended to house 900 pupils
and consists of classrooms, language,
music and creative arts workshops,
administrative and office spaces, a library,
athletic facilities, cafeteria, kitchen and a
450-seat theatre. The ground plan was
designed in an octagonal grid. The classrooms are laid out in groups of three
around the perimeter of the building;
they are also lighted from the roof and
open onto independent outdoor areas
and flat roofs. The public functions are
placed in the interior of the building.
The volume of the building complex is

Figure 13: The Sanctuary of Fatima , Portugal

broken up into terraced levels that follow

the natural incline of the terrain. The flat
roofs have been planted so as to retain
the natural vegetation. The dominant
materials both inside and outside the
building are plastered concrete with aluminium window frames. The door and
window frames and railings/banisters are
painted bright colours.
The Sanctuary of Ftima (Portugal) is a
world known Catholic pilgrimage center
since 1917 when Holy Mary appeared to
three children. Alexandros N. Tombazis
February 2009 ARCHITECTURE - Time Space & People 27

won 1st prize in the international competition by invitation for the Sanctuary of
Fatima, Church of the Most Holy Trinity
and Assembly Hall for 9,000 pilgrims,
Portugal. Execution phase of design was in
collaboration with P. Santos, architect,
Porto. This mega church has a volume of
about 130,000 m3 and an average height
of 15 m with two modes of use configurations (3,000 and 9,000 seats). Its seating
capacity makes it the largest church in
Portugal and one of the largest Roman
Catholic churches in the world. Its acoustical requirements are very stiff concerning
speech intelligibility without losing grip to
the minimum acoustical necessities for
music to support the religious services. A
1.6 seconds maximum Reverberation Time
ideal value was set.

REFERENCES

Curtis, William J. R. (1996)

Modern architecture since 1900,
Phaidon, London.

28 ARCHITECTURE - Time Space & People February 2009

Carvalho, Antonio P.O. and Freitas,

Diamantino (2003) The new
Megachurch for the sanctuary of
Fatima, in proceedings of the Tenth
International Congress on Sound and
Vibration, 7-10 July, Stockholm,
Sweden, pp. 4771-4778.
Delius, Peter ed. (1996) The story of
architecture, from antiquity to the
present, Knemann
Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Kln.
Tombazis, Alexandros N. (2005)
Working with climate- from theory to
practice, in proceedings of the 2005
World Sustainable Building
Conference, Tokyo, 27-29 September,
pp. 305-310.
Szasz, Colin (2001) The green and notso-green aspects of two buildings,
School of Architecture, McGill
University, http://www.arch.mcgill.ca/
prof/sijpkes/arch304/winter2001/csza
sz/EEB/eeb_a1p2.html, [accessed
November 2008]

WEBSITES
http://www.eikastikon.gr/arxitektoniki/pi
kionis/en_txt_cv.html
http://www.artopos.org/jfcf/ariskons/kon
st-bio-en.html
http://www.artnet.com/library/
http://www.doxiadis.org/
http://www.meletitiki.gr/
http://www.culture2000.tee.gr/ATHENS/E
NGLISH/BUILDINGS/BUILD_TEXTS
http://www.mbp.gr/html/en/mu_
ktirio.htm#

Dr Chitrarekha Kabre is B. Arch,

M. Arch (BEM) with Phd degree by
University of Queensland. Presently
she is Professor of Faculty of
Architecture, Manipal Institute
of Technology.
Ar. Dimitra Baikoussi is B. Arch
(Aristotle University) Greece. Presently
she is working with an architectural
firm in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Photographs: Courtesy the Author.