Arriving to Athens is often a bewildering experience – whether a seasoned traveller or an unassuming first-timer, being met with lines after lines of concrete apartment buildings, vertically swallowing the city, might be a far cry from the elegant, Mediterranean open-air dream that was promised; the Greek capital claims neither the Baroque opulence of Rome nor the magnificent, alluring modernism of Barcelona. Athens is quirky, multidimensional, surprising, and at the heart of it lies the polykatoikia, a Sui generis condominium decked out in plant pots and TV aerials, bizarre as it is inviting, a housing complex built for and from community, a cement block boasting a riveting legacy, a shelter for the working classes who keep the city running.
The tale begins with a lesser-known fact: Athens was never destined to be the capital. A meagre 4,000 weary souls was the bloody aftermath of the Greek War of Independence in 1821, so initially, it was the bustling port city of Nafplion that was crowned capital by the revolutionaries. However, the Western allies who bolstered Greece with financial and military support, insisted on Athens for its historic and symbolic significance, dispatching architects to Athens with a sacred mission – resurrect the classical Greek style of architecture, with iconic figures such as Ernst Ziller and Theophil Hansen. Slowly yet surely, the population grew to an impressive 120,000 people and the now buzzing streets of Athens were adorned by stunning Neoclassical buildings and homes, infused with a distinct local flair, echoing its illustrious past.
An avalanche of devastating events put a halt to the promising young capital: the Greek-Turkish population exchange in 1923 following the Asia Minor Catastrophe left 1.5 million struggling refugees stranded in the streets of Athens, with a quarter of them settling in and around the port of Piraeus and the western suburbs, suddenly raising the population to more than 500,000 within the span of a few months.
Then came the dark years of Axis Occupation (1941-45) and the subsequent Greek Civil War (1946-1949) ravaged Greece’s industry, agriculture, and infrastructure, and left an already fragile nation completely fractured along political, social and economic lines. By the end of the 1940s, Greece was in dire straits.
Greeks started to flee the barren countryside, flocking to Athens in great numbers, seeking a way out of extreme poverty. Meanwhile, in the capital, the refugees from Asia Minor were languishing in temporary shelters and the once proud, sophisticated middle class struggled to put food on their tables, let alone restore or even maintain their Neoclassical mansions. In the 1950s, Athens’ population had doubled yet again and the situation was desperate – food shortages, rampant violence, a bankrupt, decimated state.
Enter antiparochi (anti-paro-hee), a grassroots response that reshaped Athens. This concept, loughly meaning ‘mutual exchange,’ would become the hallmark of Athens’ urban fabric. Antiparochi is the reason Athens looks the way it does today—a testament to the ingenuity born from necessity. A resourceful, yet simple mechanism: a contractor would propose a deal to a homeowner: demolishing the existing house and erecting a block of flats in its place. In exchange, the homeowner received a few of the new apartments—usually two or three—while the contractor profited by selling the remaining units to other Greeks in need of housing. Remarkably, this arrangement often involved no exchange of money and no formal contracts.
This simple, effective and spontaneous solution was immediately embraced by the state itself, with only minor regulations put in place regarding restricting construction over archaeological sites and atop Athens’ seven historic hills, as well as height limits for the apartment buildings, known as polykatoikies (paw-lee-kat-ee-key-ess). It was an uncomplicated way to provide the masses with modern, affordable housing, allow contractors to generate profit independently, and create thousand of construction jobs for the local population, offering at least some financial relief after decades of hardship. With the issues of housing and work internally solved, the state could finally redirect all its resources towards infrastructure, agriculture and tourism. The efforts paid off, with the Greek economy growing by 7.7% each year between 1950 and 1977, and construction being the driving force behind it all. The new Athens was a city based on relative socioeconomic equality, with one broad middle class living together, in the same buildings.
As Athens grew financially, it grew in numbers as well, making it one of the most high-density European capitals – even today, it maintains second place out of a whopping 44 cities. Speedy development, along with zero to little administrative oversight and lack of aesthetic vision in favor of maximizing profit made for blocks upon blocks of featureless grey cement pop up all over Athens, with the effect spilling over to the suburbs. But however removed from ornate motifs and relatively devoid of character, the polykatoikia functioned as a space where community was built – it allowed for laid-back conversations between neighbors on adjacent balconies overflowing with plants and flowers, French doors flung open during lazy summer afternoons, music and kids’ laughing resonating in the hot air. The Athenian polykatoikia is not just a physical structure to protect and shelter against the elements – it’s the kernel of a troubled city emerging anew, a private refuge that manages to foster both intimate memories and closer community relationships, forever interwoven with the hopes, dreams and indisputable resilience of each person living in every bustling neighborhood.
