Modern architecture in Athens

One of the first, if not the first, apartment buildings in Athens was built in 1918–1919 by architect Alexandros Metaxas in an eclectic style for Petros Giannaros on Philellinon and Othonos Streets, adjacently to Syntagma Square.

The most important building of this style is the Bank of Greece on Panepistimiou Street built between 1933 and 1938 by a team of architects led by Nikolaos Zoumpoulidis, Kimon Laskaris, and Konstantinos Papadakis.

The designs of the new schools are based on Le Corbusier's principles, are completely unadorned with large horizontal windows, and are built with abundant and cheap materials such as stonemasonry and reinforced concrete.

Many neighbourhoods of Athens saw a construction spree fuelled by a more powerful middle and upper-middle class that were friendly to modernism and wanted to invest in property, as well as by the increase of population.

Influenced by Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, and Erich Mendelsohn,[18] as well as more conservative architects such as Michel Roux-Spitz,[19] virtually every apartment building that was built in Athens during that decade followed this style.

An example of an apartment building with completely unadorned façades and many bay windows is the famous Ble Polykatoikia near Exarcheia Square designed in 1932 by Kyriakos Panagiotakos.

[26] For example, the Municipal Market of Kypseli, which was inaugurated in 1937 by the dictator and was designed by architect Alexandros Metaxas (the two are unrelated), includes a classical cornice and small ionic capitals, despite the fact that it is a special-purpose building.

Architect and professor at the NTUA Kostas Kitsikis had lobbied extensively for this change because he thought that builders and owners abused long bay windows in order to build as much surface area as they could, turning Athens into "a bad copy of German and Dutch cities.

However, in contrast with pre-war simplified classicism, the façades of the newer buildings often included a grid which was formed by balconies and thin vertical columns.

Many apartment buildings that were built during that era in Kolonaki and other central upscale neighbourhoods of Athens were designed by architects preferred by the upper-middle class such as Emmanouil Vourekas and Konstantinos Kapsampelis.

The building is completely undecorated with a subtly visible concrete frame in the form of a grid, and has many Corbusian principles such as the ground floor pilotis.

Valentis had a consistent ideology behind the design principles of office buildings concerning practicality and aesthetics which he later in 1960 wrote down in Architektoniki [Architecture] review.

[32] Some years later, two young architects, Nikos Valsamakis (born in 1924) and Takis Zenetos (1926–1977) also exerted much influence in revitalizing Greek modernism.

Moreover, its design is inspired by traditional architecture only in matters of materials, such as the stonemasonry of the ground floor and wooden elements elsewhere, and colouring, such as the contrast between white and bright red.

Gradually, apart from Le Corbusier's principles such as pilotis and horizontal windows, also post-war International Style came to influence most buildings in Athens.

In 1961, Kostas Kitsikis designed an office building for OTE on Tritis Septemvriou Street which includes a 58-metre tower with curtain walls and a lower wing with long brise soleil.

The apartment building built between 1918 and 1919 by Alexandros Metaxas for Petros Giannaros.
Papaleonardou's apartment building, designed in 1925 by Kostas Kitsikis , incorporates Art Deco elements creating thus an eclectic style. In this building lived Maria Callas between 1937 and 1945. [ 6 ]
The building of Bank of Greece, designed in 1933 in a conservative simplified classical style.
A primary school in Makrygianni near the Acropolis of Athens . It was designed in 1931 by Patroklos Karantinos . [ 13 ]
The Blue Polykatoikia on Exarcheia Square, designed in 1932 by Kyriakos Panagiotakos.
Apartment building on Stournari and Zaimi Streets designed in 1933 by Thoukydidis Valentis and Polyvios Michailidis. It features no bay windows but long horizontal windows.
Rex Theatre on Panepistimiou Street . Designed by Leonidas Bonis and Vasileios Kassandras and built between 1935 and 1937, it is one of few buildings inspired by American Art Deco as in New York's skyscrapers. [ 14 ]
The refugees' apartment buildings on Alexandras designed in 1933 by Kimon Laskaris and Dimitrios Kyriakos in a Bauhaus style. They are now dilapidated. See a photograph of how they used to be when completed.
Two apartment buildings on Aigyptou Square, near Pedion Areos . Savvidis's apartment building (left) was designed in c. 1935 by Nikolaos Nikolaidis in a modern style. [ 29 ] The right apartment building was built in the 1950s in a "simplified classical" style.
The building of the Bodossaki Foundation on Amalias Avenue . It was designed by Andreas Ploumistos and completed in 1958. [ 30 ] Despite its conservatism it has nuances of modernism such as its façade grid.
The Air Force Assistance Fund building designed in 1947 by Thoukydidis Valentis.
The building of the National Museum of Contemporary Art on Syngrou Avenue. It was designed in 1957 by Takis Zenetos as the Fix brewery and was originally twice as long as it is now.
The office building at the start of Ermou Street on Syntagma Square. It was designed in 1961 by Dimitris Papazisis and its interior by Takis Zenetos. It has a curtain wall made of I-beams , marble, and glass.
OTE building near Victoria Square designed in 1961 by Kostas Kitsikis .