The city proposed in the 1960’s was realized according to a system, based on the concept of metabolism or renewal, in which each structure was built on a single lot. Athens, is believed to be a city consisted by structures, obeying to the rules of modernity, yet it shares commons with the ideas of metabolism, in forming urban structures. From a distance the urban landscape of Athens, basically lined with concrete structures separated by amorphous gaps [artificial or natural], has the appearance of a carpet, composed of brilliant, homogeneous grains. This resulted in an assemblage of free-willed, free-standing architectural structures, all of them promoted by the single will for a better future together with the governmental purpose for an economic rebooting, through the operation of construction. The construction system is said to stem from a social and economical system that guarantees change. So, “polykatoikia” is the unit and Athens the “magastructure”. The various, similar, structures that comprise the Athenian cityscape are like replaceable pieces in a financial-social game; and as such, are a simple means of renewing and changing the urban landscape. Architects, dealing with the urban organism should not simply touch the carpet, in order to understand it, but penetrate the structure itself-in a variety of scaleseither with gestures or thoughts.
Henri Lefebvre speaking on modern society explains: “The space produced by modernity has specific characteristics: homogeneity-fragmentation-hierarchy. It tends towards the homogeneous for various reasons .... Homogeneity, but no plans or projects. False ‘ensembles’ – in fact units. Because paradoxically (again) this homogeneous space is fragmented: lots and parcels. Reduced to crumbs!”
The contemporary city cannot continue to be approached in terms of a single place, with a single meaning, form or shape; the city manifests itself as a complex and interactive system engendered through the accumulation of manifold, simultaneous and, often contradictory actions and experiences. The contemporary city thus presents itself as an increasingly dynamic system, a process . City’s form and function are not characterized by stability, continuity or a compact state. City seems more to be a whole accumulation structures emerging from the interaction between different situations of planning, self-organisation, expectations, etc. These are structures that, despite the impression they give of disorder or arbitrariness, actually possess internal codes. Complex structures conform to dynamic systems of temporal spatial definition, the characteristics of which are analysed in a number of scientific fields and can be approached through alternative models of analogy and simulation. Entering in the urban organism with terms of orthology or simplification, does not necessarily leads to a simplified image of the city and its structure. Nonetheless, it leads research inside the urban organism, a process of structure and operation identification. Dealing with the urban formation is considered a reading of the successive fields which form the city. To read those multiple fields or a limited number of them, we need devices of thought. Research based on orthology, sociology or analogy brings to front systems of urban thought. By the time one of these research domains is structured, another one may be developed in a totally opposite way, sometimes overthrowing the first. This is the complexity that characterises urban thinking, which stems from the complexity of the city itself.
r e c or ding
the
Athenian
1922 the way of building “polykatoikias” [typical Greek building block] is opened up. Mikrasiatic catastrophy; Refugees find shelter in the capital, dramatically increasing the population of Athens. The increased need for housing is covered by upcoming laws: -The “horizontal property law” 3741/29 -Rising of the building rate from the 12/10 of the road width to the 16.5/10 of the road width, respectively. Additionally the great need of the refugees for work, transforms them to heap labor and the first industrialization arises. 1945 Civil war; Incentives to demolish houses and replace them with building blocks [“polykatoikias”] are given. The density of the urban tissue is increasing. During the civil war the population of Athens is gradually increased, since the advent and political refugees from the countryside. Once again there is a need for housing. After the civil war the need for economic reconstruction is urgent. A solution that serves both sides, according to the report of Varvaresos [1952], is giving a premium to the house construction, which covers the demand for housing while offering employment in construction firms without importing goods. Legally expressed by: -The raising of building rates and area of coverage. -The law of “antiparoxi”, a financial contract between the owner of an urban site and a manufacturer who provides the first with part of the effective built surface, occurring after the site is built.
metabolism
70s The Athenian urban environment with the extensive use of the previous laws has been saturated. Yet, the problem is not treated, and the saturation point it is further extended. The law N.D2687/53 which aimed to attracting foreign financial funds is used widely this decade and contributes to the overall industrialisation of Greece and Athens in particular. Industrial companies during 19571973 are increased by 265%. Increased job positions intensify the problem of rapid urbanization, which had already began after the Civil War. The population of Athens is once again significantly increased and the housing demand is reborn. This coincides with an attempt to reinvigorate the economy. The building construction is chosen to be, for one more time, the solution. The density rate is, again officially, increased; this time for 30%. The use of building activity as a tool to revitalise the economy, was what we could call an economic metabolism of the Athenian city; a procedure that the building is not simply a receiver of life, yet a basic tool of a socio-economical process.
The solid, the built, the shelter, formed the basis for the structure of the city, setting the “outside�, the void as a residue. The socio-economic metabolism in Athens crystallised built mass, still leaving in it intent void. The form of the void was the result of the definition of the built environment. The city may look like a board game, with many players having different interests and claims. This great edifice that we call the city like a giant stomach digests of these disparate forces. This procedure gives birth to volumes and gaps. In a metabolic process, both economic and social, sometimes the land of the city is determined by the market laws [Manhattan], or its built mass is continuously demolished and rebuilt [Tokyo]or its solidarity accumulates creating a tight urban structure, a city in layers [Athens].
Considering the gap as a fair, effective urban entity could it be approached in such a way as to reactivate it inside the internal process of the city ?
andreaspapadantonakis m e t a x i a m a r k a k i