page_title: Modern architecture in Athens
section_title: Mature developments
hierarchical_section_title: Modern architecture in Athens / The modernism of the 1960s / Mature developments
caption_attribution_description: Αn office building on 2 Ermou Street, adjacent to Syntagma Square, Athens, Greece. It was designed by Dimitris Papazisis in 1961. Its interior was designed by Takis Zenetos.
context_page_description: Modern architecture in Athens flourished during two periods, between 1930–1940 and between 1950–1975. Influenced by the European modern movement led by Le Corbusier and other architects, Greek architects tried to adapt these principles into Greek practice. However, conservatism was often a hindering factor and usually both classically inspired as well as modernist buildings were built during the same periods.
context_section_description: 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. Also, the grid on façades, especially those of office buildings, became one of the most important fields in design innovation. Departing from Valentis's Corbusian proto-Brutalist accentuated grid made of permanent masonry, glass and aluminium curtain walls started to take over. Valsamakis's office building on Kapnikareas Square (1958) and Dimitris Papazisis's office building on Syntagma Square (1961) were the first buildings in Athens where a full blown curtain wall similar in fashion to those of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was implemented.
  Marble, an abundant material in Greece, was again much used. 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.
  Important buildings of that era include; the building of the Athens Conservatoire on Rigillis Street. It was originally conceived by Ioannis Despotopoulos as part of a large cultural centre in 1959 which went through many alterations and finally stalled. Finally, only the Athens Conservatoire was built between 1969–1976. The building is praised for its clean lines, the feeling of transition when one moves from the street into the building, and Despotopoulos's handling of both tradition and monumentality; the building of the National Hellenic Research Foundation, which was designed by Constantinos Doxiadis and built between 1965–1968. Similar to Oscar Niemeyer's buildings, its front and rear façades have strict grids while its lateral ones are covered by smooth marble. Moreover, the library wing with its low height makes a contrast with the taller office wing in the background; the Hilton Athens which was designed by Emmanouil Vourekas, Prokopis Vasileiadis, and Spyros Staikos and completed in 1963. It is a modern building; however, the extensive use of white marble and thin columns made it an example of the "classicizing modernism" of that period, similar in fashion to the United States embassy building in Athens designed by Walter Gropius and completed in 1961.
caption: 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.
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