THE OF FROM 1835 TO 2004 Dr Nikos Belavilas Urban Environment Laboratory National Technical University of

Published in Patrimoine de l' industrie/ Industrial patrimony, TICCIH-ICOMOS-Ecomusee de la Communaute Urban Le Creusot Montceau Les Mines, no7/2002, pp 75-82

INTRODUCTION The best view of the is to be obtained from the deck of a vessel belonging to the Aegean shipping lines. When the ship passes the outer Krakaris pier of the Outer Harbour, the whole of the coastline of the port unfolds before the eyes of the traveller, against the background of the the traces of almost all the phases of building development during the last two centuries. 's largest port owes its existence to its deep natural bay, in an inlet of the . The ancient anchorage of the fifth century BC was chosen in 1834-1835 to be the port of the modern Athenian city at the same time as the establishment of the capital of the Greek State in Athens was decided upon. Thus, in the middle of , the two cities, the capital and its port, formed a bipolar urban complex. From 1850 onwards, the fishing village of earlier years was transformed into an industrial town with a few thousand residents. The events of 1922 and the arrival of the refugees from Asia Minor gave rise to the genesis of a parallel city, behind the industrial areas. From the 1960s, the port spread westwards. This expansion was completed around 1995. At the same time, behind the industrial zone, districts of Piraeus and the most distant settlements were amalgamated. The city expanded as far as the natural boundaries of the mountains and the outer walls of the new harbour. This spread continued until 1985. At the same period, the industrial units either moved elsewhere or ceased to function. Today, in the historical industrial zone of Piraeus, very few factories still operate. Commercial establishments have been removed from the central harbour. At present, Athens is preparing for the Olympic Games of 2004. The modernisation of the port in the direction of its exploitation for tourism and of the speeding up of passenger traffic, and the utilisation of the abandoned

2 industrial sites are the predominant trends in urban planning. The planning for the Games has included areas, a long way from the port, on the 'expensive' seafront of Phaliro. The harbour-industrial zone has been left to private enterprise. There, without any planning framework, investments are being made and uses are being introduced which are leading to the destruction of the historic premises.

THE GENESIS OF THE PORT AND THE CITY However, let us start from the beginning. During the first period of its operation, in the first half of the nineteenth century, the port covered a small area on the innermost point of the bay. In the middle of the century, it had two quays and a short waterfront. In spite of the small magnitudes of the built harbour installations, the great size of the bay permitted the mooring of 300 vessels of 150 tons. In its next phase, the port began to spread along the length of the coast, chiefly by means of scattered warehouse facilities and shipbuilding units. The coming of the railway and the construction of three stations between 1869 and 1904 reinforced the development of industry and trade, which was largely orientated towards the stations. The land uses on the city's coastline were divided into two zones: the urban and the industrial. The urban areas of the city developed in the centre of the port. Two districts colonised at the time of the War of Independence from Hydra and Chios were built after 1835. An ambitious urban plan, drawn up by the architects S. Kleanthis and E. Schaubert, laid down the terms of development. The separation of the zones had been provided for by the planning, but for much smaller magnitudes than those which Piraeus eventually took on. Along the harbour's central quay, a row of public and private buildings was constructed, forming a neo-Classical front of considerable monumentality. The basic landmarks were the three large churches,1 the Customs House complex, the Stock Exchange2 and the Food Market.3 The front was completed with large buildings (megara) and hotels in the period 1880-1910. The terminus of the Athens-Piraeus railway line was added in 1926-1928, to plans of the architects M. and I. Axelos, together with what is today the Megaron of the Bank of Greece, which was built after 1927. The hills of the mainland of Piraeus and the southern shore were not built on for many decades. On the entrance of the harbour it was planned, in 1889, to build the summer palace, but this idea never came to fruition. In its place, in 1904-1905, the Naval Cadets' School was established, to plans of the architect E. Ziller. That side of the harbour later became the site of other service units of the Navy.4 On the summit of the peninsula which dominates the harbour, on a large estate, the Hadjikyriakos Girls' Orphanage was built in 1889-1898. The Navy's buildings and the orphanage have survived to the present day.

THE WESTERN INDUSTRIAL ZONE

1 These were built between 1840 and 1882. They are Holy Trinity (bombed in 1944), St Spyridon (on the site of an old ruined monastery), and St Nicholas. 2 The Stock Exchange, subsequently the Town Hall, was contructed in 1869-1872. It was designed by the engineer G. Metaxas. It was demolished in 1986. 3 The Market was built in 1862-1863 and demolished in 1968. 4 The Aegean Naval Command and the Lighthouse Service.

3

The landscape on the NW coast began to look different towards the end of the 19th century. A machine works / shipyard - 'G. Vassiliadis' - was moved from the hinterland to the coast at . The construction of two permanent state-owned dry-docks, as a continuation of the shipyard, altered the shape of the NW coastline within a short space of time.5 The 'G. Vassiliadis' works established their shipyard there around 1893. In November 1906, the machine-shop was also transferred, from the Karavas area, where it had operated since 1859.6 In the years 1902-1906, a metal sliding grid7 was constructed for the building and repair of vessels8. This continued to be used in the same form until the mid 1950s. The construction of the state-owned masonry dry-docks, designed by the engineer E. Angelopoulos, began in 1898 and was completed in 1912. The stone-built complex included the 'King George I' dry-dock, of a capacity of 12,000 tons, and the 'Queen Olga', of a capacity of 9,000 tons. Both dry- docks were bombed in 1944, but were brought back into operation and are still in use today. In parallel with the dry-docks, the harbour was deepened and an approach channel was created. In 1909, to the west, an industrial complex producing fertilisers, glass and acids was set up. 'Chemical Products and Fertlizers, SA', the life and soul of which was the chemist N. Canellopoulos, was laid out on a 34-hectare site. The factory was the largest chemicals plant in Greece until the 1960s.9 After the CPFSA, a series of other industrial units was built on the coast. The 'Heracles SA' cement works was established in 1910 by A. Hadjikyriakos, a tannery was set up in the same year, a small plaster factory in 1920 - and premises for the storage of petroleum oil products - the only ones which still operate today.

THE HARBOUR UNTIL 1937 In the inner harbour, between 1893 and 1904, a short length of quays, and two jetties were built at Troumba and Ietioneia. The development of the harbour industrial zone on the western coast coincided with the major expansion of the port. The area occupied by the harbour doubled, taking up the wide entrance to the bay by the construction of the outer Krakaris and Themistokleous moles, to the plans of the harbour engineer E. Quellennec.10 By means of the new moles and the removal of rocks from the seabed in 1908, the 'Prolimenas', or outer harbour, was created. By these projects the

5 The coast at Drapetsona was until 1900 the location of the city's 'dirty' sites: the Cemetery (it was moved westwards, outside the city, in 1897), the Municipal Slaughterhouse, built around 1883, and the quarantine premises, which operated from 1863 until the end of the century (they were then transferred to the islet of Aghios Georgios). 6 The seaside site, of an area of four hectares, was purchased in 1898. The site of the shipyard came into the possession of the OLP in 1963. See Kotea, M., The industrial zone of Piraeus, 1860-1890, Panteio University, Athens 1997, pp. 99-104 (in greek). 7 The 'Patent Slip Vassiliades' had a length of 356 feet, a width of 54 feet at the base and of 68 feet at the upper lip, and an average depth of 23 feet. See Agriantoni, Christina, Belavilas, N., 'Piraeus - Drapetsona, the western industrial zone', 10th International Conference TICCIH, Guided Tours, Athens 1997. 8 It was capable of taking ships of a displacement of 3,500 tons. 9 Apart from the basic production units, housing for the workers and office employees was built on the factory site in 1910-1918, followed by the 'Nikolaos Canellopoulos' Institute of Agriculture and Chemistry, in 1938. The factory ceased operations in summer 2000. See Kokkinos, B., Kouthouri, E., Historical Industrial Equipment in Greece (ed. Christina Agriantoni, N. Belavilas), NTUA, NHRF, Athens 1998, pp. 185-207 (in greek). 10 Tsokopoulos, V., Public works in Greece, late 19th-early 20th cent., Athens 1999, p. 136.(in greek)

4 total area of the harbour basin was increased by 44 hectares.11 In the years which followed, down to 1937, many designs and vigorous construction activity gave to the harbour its complete form.12 The greater part of the works was carried out on the basis of a plan of 1923, with the French 'Hersent Enterprises de Travaux Publics et Maritimes', 'Société de Construction des Batignoles', 'Régie Générale de Chemin de Fer et Travaux Publics' and 'Schneider et Co.' group of companies as contractor.13 For 20 years, quays, new moles and a large harbour warehouse complex were constructed.14 The large concrete and brick warehouses which still survive at Aghios Dionysis, at the Akti Vassiliadi and the Karvouniarika belong to this period and were completed in 1931.15 The constant need for the development of the port was already apparent as the implementation of the plan advanced. It seems that the idea of the extension of the harbour was first mooted around 1926, to be implemented 30 years later.16 The debate on the future of the port continued until 1933. One of Greece's best-known engineers, A. Zachariou, and the harbour engineer E. Coen Cagli lodged the last two pre-War proposals.17 E. Coen Cagli's proposal provided for the construction of a large building to house the Piraeus Port Organisation (OLP), which had been set up a little earlier.18 The building, in front of the Town Hall, was to be the 'control tower' of the harbour. This building, which would have changed the picture of the seafront, was never constructed. On the other hand, a ring-road to the NW, designed at that time, is being built today - 70 years later. In 1937,19 a grain silo opened on the Ietoneia jetty. This was the last project in the pre-War phase; still today it is one of the port's important landmarks.

THE CITY OF THE REFUGEES AND THE SECOND WORLD WAR In 1920, Piraeus had 135,000 residents. In 1922, the Greek-Turkish War made more than 1,000,000 people refugees. A large part of the wave of refugees headed to the state's largest port, sending the population shooting up to 251,000. The city doubled in size.20 The great mass of the new residents was housed in settlements to the west of the harbour. A large refugee shanty town was created between 1922 and 1930 at Drapetsona, next to the coast, and remained until the 1970s. Though refugee immigration reinforced the city's industrial character, it changed its social identity dramatically. The new 'second' city which was thus created lacked infrastructures, suffered from the pollution caused by the factories and was inhabited by an exclusively working-class population. Piraeus was divided in two, with the harbour and the industrial zone serving as the barrier between its poor and wealthier districts.

11 Hatzimanolakis, G.E., The Port of Piraeus during the centuries, 4th edition, Piraeus 1996, p. 133 (in greek). 12 The design for the port which was finally implemented was the product of a compromise between the different proposals which had been formulated. See in this connection Quellennec, Ed., 'Study on re-organisation and expansion of Piraeus Port', Works, Vol. 38, 30.12.1926, pp. 313-322 (in greek). 13 The difficulties encountered in removing the rock led to friction with the French joint venture, but in 1927 the first section was delivered See Tsokopoulos, op. cit., p. 137. 14 The projects were quays of a length of 2.7 km., a dock for barges, a mole at , five different harbour sheds, rock-removal and deepening. See Hatzimanolakis, op. cit., p. 134. 15 Some of these were demolished, after 1985. 16 Quellennec, op. cit,. Vol. 38, 30.12.1926, pp. 313-322. 17 Zachariou, A.D., 'The problem of arrangement of the Piraeus Port', Technical Chronicles, Vol. B'/IV, 38, 15.7.1933, pp. 705-729. 18 The Piraeus Port Organisation (Greek initials OLP) replaced the 'Port Commission' in May 1930. 19 The silo opened on 1937, see Annual Bulletin OLP, Piraeus 1981, p. 52. 20 Polyzos, G.N., Hellenism of Asia Minor, urban seqeuncenses from the refugees installation, NTUA, Chair of Urban Planning, Athens 1979, pp. 9-10.

5

The Second World War inflicted heavy damage on the port. On 1941 and 1944, the Italian Air Force, the German, and, that of the Allies bombed the city. The bombing centred on the harbour and the convoys anchored there. The harbour infrastructures, parts of the central districts and the shanty town, were destroyed by the bombardments.21 The tribute of blood was measured in hundreds of dead. After the end of the War, in 1945, the raising of the wrecks, the repair of the quays and of the masonry dry-docks which had been damaged began.22 During the post-War years, Piraeus showed stagnation where its urban planning magnitudes were concerned. To a large degree, this was the result of the wounds inflicted by a decade of war, which, for Greece, really ended in August 1949, with the end of the Civil War. The bombing brought about changes in the population and strengthened the trend for the bourgeois class of Piraeus to move out, chiefly to the northern suburbs of Athens, a trend which had begun in the early years of the century. The first changes in the city's fabric began towards the end of the 1960s. They concerned chiefly the renewal of the building stock, aided by the trend towards internal migration, which constantly increased the population of Attica. However, in spite of the increase in the population, in parallel with the increase in the built space (with a change from the typical two and three- storey neo-Classical buildings to multi-storey 'Mediterranean type' apartment blocks), the basic structure and functions of the city did not change. Piraeus continued to live within the basic frame designed in 1835 and in the expansion caused by the refugees of 1922.

THE POST-WAR EXPANSION OF THE HARBOUR Something similar happened at the harbour. Up to 1955, work was orientated towards making good war damage. The basic installations of the harbour, dating from 1937, had remained the same. In 1955, the programme for development projects was planned by prof. D. Pippas,23 and in 1962 harbour works began for the first time outside the port itself, at Keratsini.24 Expansion westwards began gradually to become a reality. The dictatorship of 1967-1974 brought about an important change of direction. Amendments to the urban planning legislation as to the restrictions on the height of buildings and the systematic development of public and private investments in tourism transformed Piraeus. From 1967 to a little after 1980, almost the whole of the city's old building stock was replaced. The harbour front of residences, office buildings, banks and hotels of the nineteenth century was replaced by new office and bank buildings. The construction of two large buildings was a turning-point in the picture presented by the urban space. On the SE edge of the shoreline, next to the old Customs House building, the OLP put up the Passenger Station, an imposing building which had been designed in 1964 by the architects G. Liapis and I. Skroumbelos. Construction started in 1966.25 A little later, in 1968, the Food Market and the Town Hall - Stock Exchange were demolished. In place

21 Thirteen buildings were damaged, together with the permanent dry-docks, 3 km. of quays and almost all the mechanical equipment. Two large vessels and many smaller ones were sunk in the harbour. See Bulletin OLP, op.cit. p. 53. 22 In 1946, 31 new cranes replaced those destroyed in the War, Bulletin OLP, op. cit., p. 54. 23 Bulletin OLP, op. cit., p. 54. 24 Bulletin OLP, op. cit., p. 57. 25 Bulletin OLP, op. cit, p. 54.

6 of the old market, a 20-storey tower-block was begun, to house shipping enterprises and offices. This tower-block has remained unfinished. At the same period, the bombed Church of the Holy Trinity was rebuilt, on a larger scale than the original. The model of these interventions was also followed by the private sector, and the result was that within the space of a few years, scores of the neo- Classical monuments of the nineteenth century were lost. In the west, the State went ahead with the complete demolition of the refugees' slum district at Drapetsona. This intervention, which had stalled once, in 1960, because of the reaction of the community, was finally carried out in 1972. In the place of the slums, multi-storey blocks of flats for workers were constructed. These changes also speeded up projects at the harbour. In 1969, approval was given by OLP to the new general master plan for the 'Greater Port of Piraeus'26. This plan served for the years which followed as a guide for planning for the port, while at the same time it solved the problem of the congestion of the 'Central Harbour', as it was now called. The 'Irakleous Harbour', two miles to the NW, was designed to take the burden of goods and the customs. A row of inlets, at Drapetsona, and Salamina were incorporated into the 'Greater Port'. The harbour of Piraeus now occupies an area many times that of the natural bay in which it first came into being. The dramatic overthrow of the pre-War urban planning status caused by this sudden growth of the port, after 1969, will be easily appreciated. All the city's western districts were now trapped behind a barrier, many kilometres in length, formed by the harbour premises, without any outlet to the sea. Both the older districts, those of the refugeees of 1922, and the newer ones, resulting from post-War urbanisation, were burdened with the great load of the through road traffic, without infrastructures and arteries having been planned for it. It is also worth noting that the railway networks, with specifications belonging to the early twentieth century, were unable to cope with the new harbour.

THE OLYMPIC GAMES OF 2004 AND THE INDUSTRIAL ZONE In 1977, Athens undertook to hold the Olympic Games of 2004. In the master plan of the candidacy bid, the majority of the new facilities were sited on the coast at Phaliro, to the east of Piraeus. Academic authorities, enivironmental organisations and municipalities proposed that these facilities should be moved to neglected areas of Attica. Among these was the former industrial zone of Piraeus,27 and more specifically, the areas between the 'CPFSA' factories, which now belong to the National Bank, and 'Heracles', which has been bought by a British group. The aim of the proposal was the remediation of the area and the setting in train of the parallel remodelling and re-use of the old factories. It should be noted that at that period, the phenomenon of 'de-industrialisation', which evolved from the mid 1980s, when it first made its appearance, had virtually run its course in Piraeus. After a history of decline, the two largest industrial plants on the western coast, the Drapetsona Fertiliser factory and the Heracles SA cement factory, closed. The Vassiliadis shipyard had gone out of business a good time earlier, in the first years after the War. Apart from the large industrial units, scores of smaller ones in the

26 This too had been drawn up by D. Pippas., Pippas, D.A., 'Τα λιμενικά έργα του ΟΛΠ κατά την περίοδο 1930-1950' in Bulletin OLP, op. cit., pp. 31-48. 27 See 'Urban and environmental dimension of the Olympic Games 2004', Urban Environment Laboratory NTUA, Athens 1998.

7

Aghios Dionysis and Drapetsona-Keratsini areas also closed in the 1990s and from 2000 on. One result of this development was the creation of a vast complex of abandoned premises, formerly factories. This complex on the western coastline of the harbour has the appearance today of a continuous seaside zone of an area of 64 hectares. Since 1996, the National Technical University of Athens and the National Hellenic Research Foundation have carried out an extensive survey and assessment of historic factories in Greece. The research project concluded that the CPFSA factory at Drapetsona is an important monument of the industrial heritage, in need of protection. Despite these appeals for the occasion of the Games to serve for the revitalisation of the ruined industrial premises, the 'Athens 2004' Committee has persisted in the sitings at Phaliro. In the meantime, the undertaking of the Games, supplemented by the Second (1996-2000) and Third (2001-2006) Community Support Framework, has caused enormous changes in the Greek land market. Hundreds of enterprises are investing at this time in land and new uses in Piraeus. The city found itself defenceless in the face of this wave of profiteering, which resembles that caused by the 'urban planning derestriction' of the period 1967-1974. Urban planning is responding to the needs of 1985 and has made no provision for this new state of affairs. The up-to-date urban plans for Piraeus, which were drawn up in the period 1992-2000, have not received statutory institution. In the absence, then, of any control framework for uses in the old industrial zone, sites are bought for office buildings, mass entertainment establishments and major commercial centres. In most cases, there is no provision for the protection of the industrial monuments, which results in their demolition by the new owners. It goes without saying, also, that the mechanical equipment is usually sold for scrap before the sites are sold. The most striking example of this development was the action taken by the National Bank, which in 1998-2000 closed down permanently the operation of the CPFSA factory at Drapetsona and dismissed a staff of 400. This was followed by the systematic destruction of the industrial equipment. The glass-making furnaces, the conveyor belts, the acids units, all of outstanding historical importance, have already been demolished. Unfortunately, this development has up to now proved impossible to reverse, either by the reaction of the trade-union organisations or that of the academic agencies of the TICCIH.28

THE OLYMPIC GAMES OF 2004 AND THE HARBOUR ZONE With the relocation in recent years of the heavy, shipbuilding and goods functions of the port to the straits of Salamina and the bay of Elefsina, the quays have started to be vacated by the customs, warehousing and transport installations. In this way, in the interior of the harbour also, scores of building which up to then had served these functions have been left empty. The warehouses have been abandoned - and some of them have been demolished; the silo, the conveyor belts and the loading cranes have been abandoned. The walls which surrounded the harbour zone have been demolished and the place of freight vessels has been taken by passenger ships, the size of which increased markedly in the last decade of the twentieth

28 The NTUA, the NCRF, the ETBA Bank Cultural Foundation, and the Greek TICCIH were active in the initiative for the preservation of the factory. The International TICCIH, through its Secretary, Stuart B. Smith, contributed to the campaign by a letter of protest addressed to the Greek Prime Minister and the Government, on 25 April 2001.

8 century. OLP is planning the modernisation of the central harbour, in the direction of its exploitation for tourism and of an increase in the number and rapidity of movement of passengers. A prerequisite for this is the creation of new infrastructures, on a much larger scale than those that preceded them. The absence on the part of OLP of reasonable protection, re-use and promotion of the historical identity of the harbour in contemporary conditions is leading to projects which are contrary to any concept of the preservation of the industrial heritage. In 1998-2001, jetties for cruise ships were constructed in the place of the Vassiliadis shipyard. In 2001, OLP sought permission to demolish a system which included the Krakaris mole, with the conveyor belt to vessels and the neighbouring warehousing and fertiliser-manufacturing units. On the eastern side of the entrance, the building of a large hotel unit is planned. The Karvouniarika warehouse has been converted into a shipping megaron, and the interventions in the building have wiped out its inter-War architectural identity. An interesting project which provided for the housing of the Ministry of Merchant Marine in the Ietoneia warehouses was cancelled in 2001. In 1994, planning began, and is gradually being implemented, for a rapid traffic ring-road which cuts through the seafront in the area of the old factories and shipyards. Because of the Games, this project has also been speeded up. After pressure was brought to bear, in some sections the ring- road is being constructed underground, to avoid the demolition of parts of the factories, but in other sections, this has not been avoided. A traffic project of major importance for Athens and Piraeus has been set in motion recently. This is the suburban railway. A new unified terminus station, where today's three railway lines will meet, is to be constructed at the harbour. The new station will not incorporate but will destroy the old Peloponnese Station. On the other hand, the Athens-Piraeus line station was restored in an exemplary fashion in 2001, and the destruction of the station of the Northern Greece line was stopped at the last minute, in 1997.

EPILOGUE In our opinion, an exceptional opportunity for the re-organisation of its infrastructures and seafront, and for the highlighting of the identity of its historic harbour, is being lost in Piraeus. Also being lost is the possibility of revitalising the dead areas left behind by industry when it abandoned the city after 150 years. In Athens today, in view of the 2004 Games, and in contrast with the experience of Barcelona and of Sydney, the projects are being carried out in ecologically sensitive areas and on achaeological sites of great importance. This has resulted in the growing opposition of greek urbanists, environmentalists and public opinion. The integration of the Olympic projects into areas which needed remediation and public investments would have helped to achieve a balance. Instead of this, the option of the unconditional abandonment of these areas to opportunistic investors in land has been taken.