The evolution of Athens as a capital city: the early plans PDF

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UNIVERSITY OF PATRAS Department of Cultural Heritage Management and New Technologies Course of History of the City and of Urban Development “The evolution of Athens as a capital city: the early plans.” Student: Agnese Balducci Professor: Dora Monioudi-Gavala Chapters 1. Introduction 2. Plans and leg...

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UNIVERSITY OF PATRAS

Department of Cultural Heritage Management and New Technologies

Course of History of the City and of Urban Development

“The evolution of Athens as a capital city: the early plans.”

Student: Agnese Balducci

Professor: Dora Monioudi-Gavala

Chapters

1. Introduction

2. Plans and legislation of Athens

3. Urban planning of Athens

4. Conclusions

5. Bibliography

1. Introduction

With this essay I am going to develop the theme of the birth of the city of Athens as a Modern city, analyzing all the plans that have occurred over time, referring to similar situations related to other Greek cities too. The study concerns state interventions to reform cities in the XIX century, from Otto’s reign (1833) to 1890, with a particular focus on the Kleanthis-Schaubert and Klenze plans1. It is interesting to see how these urban reforms have changed the social status in a Country, Greece, characterized by a strong identity and an important history behind it. In the first part of the essay I am going to analyze the actions that the new state took to organize its settlements (plans and the legislation); in the second part what happened in the urban planning of Athens, in particular the Kleanthis-Schaubert and Klenze plans.

2. Plans and legislation of Athens

After the Greek insurrection (1821-1827) against the Ottomans, in the 1832 France, Britain and Russia signed the London Protocol that declared Greece as a monarchical and indipendent state with Prince Frederick Otto Wittelsbach, the first king of Greece. These three Allied Powers tried to trace on the map the frontier line of this new State and it presented itself in this way: from the Gulf of Arta on the west to the Sperchius Valley on the east, from Thessaly and Epirus to Locris, Boeotia, Acarnania and Aetolia; in 1834 the first census counted 650.000 inhabitants overall2. The new State decided to renew the urban structure by rebuilding devastated cities, creating new ones that should have the basis for a significant development over time. This newly-constitued kingdom chose to set up a new administration: occupied mostly by the Bavarians brought by the king, while the Greeks were placed in secondary seats relating to local government; it also set up a centralised decision-making mechanism based in the new capital city of 1 2

Cfr. Monioudi-Gavala 2012, p. 195. Cfr. Karidis 2014, p. 89.

Athens3. At that time Athens was a town with a population of 4.000 inhabitants and most of them were employed in the primary sector of the economy and one of the peculiarities of the nineteenthcentury Greek state was its strong role in the creation of economic surpluses4. Talking about the regulation of construction matters decrees were issued and concerned the whole state. The first important one is the 1883 decree that determined the sanctions for violations regarding public hygiene, foodstuffs and buildings and stated also that a construction permit was required for every new building or repairs to an existing one5. The general planning of the cities was treated in the important Decree of 1835 called “On the sanitary construction of cities and towns” and it defined the principles of urban planning, its construction and stylistic dictates and systematised the basic conditions for buildings; in particular it defined instructions for roads that had to assume a rectangular grid and stipulated the width of the streets and squares. With the words of the urbanist Pierre Lavendan we can understand the importance of this decree: “[…] first-class urban planning document”6. In 1836 the decree “building construction regulation” defined issues like: 

the shape and the minimum size of lots and buildings (that had to be rectangular parallelepiped shape);



the number of floors (no more than two floors and they had to be built in the continuous system);



the partitions (buildings with more than two storeys were prohibited, owing the risk of earthquakes);



the terrace system( selected at least for city centres and market districts);



the rectangular angle that buildings must had in their intersection with the street line (if buildings violated this disposition they were demolited at owner’s expense);



fire safety measures (it was prohibites the use of flammable materials like timber hitches in bakeries and blacksmith’s and it was imposed the use of mud and fired bricks).

It also appointed an arbitration committee responsible for determining compensation between neighbours that decided who had to compensate who.

3

Ibid., p. 197-198. Cfr. Karidis 2014, p. 95. 5 Cfr. Monioudi-Gavala, in Construction Regulations in Athens, 1833-1864: Creating a Metropolis, p. 4. 6 Lavendan 1952, p. 198. 4

Another important decree is the one of 1842 that approved plans for Athens and Ermoupoli and it established the settlement and merging of lots, in detail: the lot had to comply with the minimum size specifications and with the required rectangular shape, otherwise it had to be merged with a neighbouring lot. There was just one way to acquire public spaces where to build: compulsory expropriation; owners were obliged to pay compensation to those whose properties were expropriated to be converted into areas of public use. For regulations about city issues we have to wait until 1856 when the state passed a law for building sidewalks, sewers, planting trees and it introduced the concept of a green belt around the cities, not more than 280 mt from the perimetric construction line of the approved plan. In 1859 a legislative regulation granted national land for stone masonry markeplaces in every city, these market areas are distinguishable by their smaller lots. In 1867, instead, was defined the minimum size of lots with specifications for the façade, they could not be larger than those applicable in Athens or smaller than the ones in the city of Ermoupoli. The last important law of 1923 “On the plans of the state’s cities, towns and New Towns and their construction” gave legislative continuity to all the Greek cities, trying, step by step, to fill every need7. We know that all Greek cities rised in analogy with the first new city built, I would call it “modern city”, that was Athens and now I am going to analyze in details its case.

7

Cfr. Monioudi-Gavala 2012, pp. 201-204.

3. Urban planning of Athens

Kleanthis-Schaubert Plan

After the Greek insurrection against the Ottoman Empire (1821-1827) Athens was severely damaged, Turkish guard definitively left Acropolis only in 1833 and in those years Athens begun its rebirth with the new urban design and civic architecture that contributed to the construction of a modern Greek national identity. Modern Greece had to build a coherent national culture and the country pursued some aspirations and the most important are: the acceptance into the modern European nations, the gradual territorial expansion related to a cultural and political unity and a strong connection with the classical Greek past. To understand the concept of “modernity” we have to remember the definition of it by Charles Baudelaire: “modernity is the transient, the fleeting, the contingent; it is one half of art, the other being the eternal and the immovable”8; this kind of modernisation and, we can say, Europeanisation is very well visible in the classical rationalism imported from European town plannings, which distance Greece from the past Ottoman tradition9. In November of 1831, the architects Stamatis Kleanthis and Eduard Schaubert, students of one of the most important German neo-classical architect in Berlin Baukademie, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, came to Athens where they proposed a topographical survey with their city planning. The approach towards their plan for Athens focussed on a relationship between urban space and romantic vision, their planning initiatives not only concerned the urban physical aspect but also strategies for the future, generating economic vitality10. In July 1833 the New Plan for the City of Athens was approved by the Regency, who had in the meantime took the reins of state. The New City included about half of the Old one, while extending from it to the West, the North and the East; the other half of the Old City, defined by Hephasteus, Pandrosou and Adrianou Sts., was to be expropriated for archeological excavations. The keystone of the plan is a simple geometric form, an isosceles triangle, which provided the backbone for future development; the base was set north of the Acropolis, along an east-west 8

C. Baudelaire 1972, pp. 400-401. Cfr. Monioudi-Gavala 2017, p. 3. 10 Cfr. D. N. Karidis 2014, p. 103. 9

direction, the other two sides of the triangle were set with the eastern one for making a link between the north angle with the axis of Panathenaic Stadium, and the western side taking the direction of the road to Piraeus11. The Royal Palace was expected to stand at the peak of the traingle, occupied today by Omonia Square, as a symbolic merger of the geometric apex and the apex of State power, it rose near the intersection of Hermou and Stadiou Streets; the royal palace was designed by Friedrich von Gärtner and it was completed in 184312. Adjacent to the palace were located all the administrative buildings and ministerial offices with a big green space around them. The Acropolis hill was restored to its classical state and all post-classical additions were removed; between the Acropolis and the base of the triangle there was the archeological zone, left unchanged in view of subsequent excavations. The area for commercial activities was in the western part, along Piraeus Street and a commercial centre was located along the bisector of the northern angle in the southern direction; military area was, instead, situated to the northeast and northwest of the town, while the cultural centre was in the southeastern angle and it was formed by the University, the Library, the Academy, the Cathedral and the botanic garden, where Syntagma Square lies today. The University was designed by the Danish architect Christian Hansen and the neo-classical building is an example of the fusion of the ancient Greek architecture and the European NeoClassicism; the Library and the Academic were designed by Theophil von Hansen around the last decades of 1800. These three buildings became the Athenian trilogy on University Street and they formed the cultural centre of Greece, in analogy with the other european cultural centres, leading to an ever-increasing modernisation13. The Cathedral (1842-1862) was designed by more architects after an architectural competition that requested the use of the “Greek Byzantine” order and this kind of style was chosen to make a continuity between Greek tradition and the Byzantine one, it is, in fact, the religious symbol of the deep bond with Byzantium. In the same years of the construction of the Cathedral, the Archeological Museum was founded after an international competition in 1858, same as the Cathedral; the architects designed a NeoClassical building that could accomodate the growing collection of antiquites. With these examples we can see that Kleanthes and Schaubert’s plan included many civic and public buildings but the process of their financing was long and convoluted14.

11

Cfr. Ibid. p. 104. Cfr. E. Bastéa 2010, pp. 34-35. 13 Cfr. J. K. Darling 2004, pp. 92-93. 14 Cfr. Ibid., pp. 36-37. 12

The totality was designed to host all of the activities of a capital and a population which was expected to reach around 40.000 inhabitants. The geometric planning of Kleanthis and Schaubert is characterized by the functional and the rational use of space that has its origins in the figure of the architect and urbanist Hippodamus from Miletus, the first to use and theorize regular planimetric schemes in city planning; the result of the Baroque style typical of the two modern architects combined with the study of Hippodamus’ urbanism was that of a radial-concentric pattern. This “web” design was the solution to the question of street intersection with the pattern overmentioned15. Another important point of their plan is the introduction in the Greek capital of the Baroque Trivium: the urban conceit of three radial streets that converge into the same point (a great example is Piazza del Popolo in Rome designed by the architect Giuseppe Valadier in 1813 on which meet the central Via del Corso and the lateral streets of Via Ripetta and Via del Babuino)16. All these elements make a connection with the new bourgeois consciousness, finding its symbolic expression in the Burg, the New City. By the end of the 1833, the implementation of the plan had begun but once it was realized the extent of the areas to be expropriated for the erection of public buildings, the development of the parks and the roadway network a wave of protests erupted, forcing the Regency to order a cessation in the implementation of the plan, in the 11st of June 1834.

15 16

Cfr. D. N. Karidis 2014, p. 105. Cfr. Ibid., p. 109.

Klenze Plan

The Kleanthes-Schaubert plan was rejected and it was criticized in various ways: William Miller wrote that it would have been better to apply this type of plan to a city like Byzantium and not to Athens,while according to Eleni Bastéa there was the simple idea of a connection problem between the quality of the plan, its legislation and the public participation. The point is that the plan of the two German-educated architects was going to affect the original structure of the city, both from the phisycal aspect (too big roads and dispersive links of roads) and from the social point of view (the modernization of the city it had to take place gradually, entering into a traditionally well defined context step by step)17. There was also the problem of the land speculation: landowners felt the threat from the new plan to their assets and the Government found itself unable to grant compensation due to the increase in land costs. Next, the famous Bavarian architecht Leo von Klenze was summoned by Ludwig I (the young King Otto’s father) and he drafted in September 1834 a revision of the original plan. Klenze’s task was to create a compromise plan: he had to save the city from destruction, but also to assert Royal and German domination. Klenze performed the first goal with admirable skills, he preserved the Ottoman Athens and the trivium of streets envisioned by Schaubert and Kleanthes, but this trivium (formed by Ermou, Athenon and Aeolou Streets) was to become the center of the newly build Athens. Only a few of the new straight-line streets were to cut into the fabric of the Old City, and they were narrower in comparison to the Kleanthes-Schaubert plan.  The Royal Palace was removed from the head of the trivium, and then placed on the Western outskirts of the city. Klenze’s plan was a remarkable model and it was largely followed throughout the XIX century. But he failed in the implementation of the second goal. There was really no good place for the Royal Palace in the Klenze’s plan. The architect, who was in Athens only for about two months, placed the palace where the remains of the ancient Athenian cemetery Kerameikos were located. This new location for the Royal Palace was criticized by the local population because the area was considered unhealthy; in the summer of 1835, in fact, these areas had an outbreak of malaria18. On the 26th of January 1836 the planning of the palace was delegated to Friedrich von Gartner

17 18

Cfr. Ibid., pp. 110-111. Cfr. Mirkovic 2012, p. 153.

without consulting Klenze but he continued to work in Athens as well and, in 1844, he designed the Roman Catholic Cathedral.

4. Conclusions Analyzing the evolutionary process of the city of Athens, and in particular the two plans, we can notice that: the Kleanthes and Schaubert plan, like many contemporary plans, reflected a vision of the city that had to develop around the main fulcrum, which was the royal residence, and despite his calculated order it looked static19. Talking about the Klenze plan the French scholar Pierre Lavedan observes that: the change of location of the royal palace erased one of the key elements of the first plan, caught up in the tenacious interface between the old and the modern towns20. The process of modernization the city of Athens, begun with King Otto, aspired to a better future after the dark period of the Byzantine and Ottoman dominations. But the real problem was that this modernization took place only at an architectural and structural level and not at the level of the government management, leading to a stunting of growth. For example, between 1922 and 1940 the Greek government was forced to accommodate the Asia Minor refugees and, despite many architects were continuing to propose new solutions for the urban development, the emergencies to be faced were obviously others. I think the words of Nathaniel D. Wood are the most suitable for concluding this study: “Each force generated its own narrative, tropes that we might describe alternately as ‘the myth of the nation’, and the ‘myth of Europe’, which stood in the parlance of the day for modernity and European civilization. […] The process of planning national capitals in the territories of the de-centralizing Ottoman and Habsburg Empires during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries clearly blended these two mythic visions of modernity”21.

19

Cfr. E. Bastéa 2014, p. 150. Cfr. D. N. Karidis 2014, p. 114. 21 N. Wood 2010, p. 259. 20

5. Bibliography -E. Bastèa, Athens in Capital Cities in the Aftermath of Empires. Planning in Central and Southeastern Europe, London and New York, Emily Gunzburger Makaš and Tanja Damljanović Conley (Routledge), 2010, pp. 29-44. -E. Bastèa, Athens, 1890-1940: Transitory Modernism and National Realities in Races to Modernity. Metropolitan aspirations in Eastern Europe, 1890-1940, Budapest and New York, Jan C. Behrends and Martin Kohlrausch (CEU Press), 2014, pp. 127-152. -C. Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life (e.1860) in Selected Writings on Art and Literature, translated by P. E. Charvet (New York: Penguin, 1972), pp. 395-422. -J. K. Darling, Architecture of Greece, London, Greenwood Press, 2004. -D. N. Karidis, Athens from 1456 to 1920. The town under Ottoman Rule and the 19th-Century Capital City, Oxford, Archaeopress, 2014 (photocopy of part of the book). -P. Lavedan, Histoire de l’Urbanisme: Époque contemporaine, Paris, H. Laurens, 1952. -A. Mirkovic, Who Owns Athens? Urban Planning and the Struggle for Identity in Neo-Classical Athens (1832-1843), accessed January 11, 2019, https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/38831778.pdf -D. Monioudi-Gavala, Construction Regulations in Athens, 1833-1864: Creating a Metropolis in Building Regulations and Urban Form, 1200-1900, New York, Terry R. Slater and Sandra M. G. Pinto (Routledge), 2017, pp. 271-287. -D. Monioudi-Gavala, Urban Planning in the Greek State 1833-1890, Agrinio, Department of Cultural Heritage Management and New Technologies of the University of Western Greece, 2012. -N. Wood, Not just the National: Modernity and the Myth of Europe in the Capital Cities of Central and Southeastern Europe, Taylor & Francis, 2010, pp. 258-269....