Builders, Housewives, and the Construction of Modern Athens - Book presentation and film screening

Architectural historians have tended to disparage the lack of formal planning and the apparent homogeneity of its “box-like” concrete buildings. By casting it as a uniquely local mode of informal urbanism, a phenomenon that in a broader sense, is found around the world and particularly in the “developing” world, Theocharopoulou’s book offers a critical re-evaluation of the city as a successful adaptation to circumstance, that enriches our understanding of urbanism as a truly collective design activity. “Builders, Housewives, and the Construction of Modern Athens” advocates an architectural history that allows access to the conceptual worlds and the imagination of ordinary builders and inhabitants.

This approach departs from a focus on structures designed exclusively by architects and planners, to explore processes – financial, cultural, and material – that relied on self-organized, communal endeavors. These improvisations and adaptations succeeded in producing a dense and vibrant city. In turn, they can help us imagine how to create more sustainable and livable urban models.

In the words of the same-titled film directors, Tassos Langis and Yiannis Gaitanidis, “Athens is our city, the place we were born and live, and we love it as if it were our own ‘village.’ However, at the same time, Athens is full of contradictions and remains practically unknown, mostly because the repetitive texture of the apartment buildings multiplies in clones. The space spreads out like a text: impenetrable in its general tone, incomprehensible, lacking any apparent historical referents – except for the Acropolis landmark and a few scattered, disconnected monuments. Someone might wonder how all this was built – it was certainly not by architects and urban planners. Using Ioanna Theocharopoulou’s book as a starting point and guide, we delved into the cracks of our modern urban history to trace the internal immigrants who were the ‘co-authors’ of our built environment. We started from the same biases: the conviction that those were the people who destroyed Athens, the failure of Konstantinos Karamanlis’ ‘antiparochi’ system, etc.). We can’t tell if these biases and myths around Athens will cease to exist. But we do know that another narrative has been added up, a story about the creation of Europe’s oldest new capital.”

19:00-20:00 | Discussion

20:00-20:30 | Book signing session*

20:30-22:00 | Film screening: "Builders, Housewives, and the Construction of Modern Athens"

* During the event, the author will be participating in a book signing session. The book will be available for purchase in the foyers of the Onassis Stegi.

Afroditi Panagiotakou, Director of Culture, Onassis Foundation

Ioanna Theocharopoulou, Visiting Lecturer at the Department of Architecture, Art, and Planning, Cornell University; author of “Builders, Housewives, and the Construction of Modern Athens”

Tassos Langis, Film Director

Yiannis Gaitanidis, Film Director

Panos Dragonas, Architect, Professor of Architecture & Urban Design at the Department of Architecture, University of Patras

Michael Herzfeld, Emeritus Research Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University and Emeritus Professor of Critical Heritage Studies at Leiden University