hartmut frank / professor für architekurtheorie angelus eisinger / professor für geschichte und kultur der metropole einschreibungen überschreibungen neuschreibungen: Omonoia Square_Athens_Greece Zogolopoulos Giorgos,2000, Omonoia Square, Athens hcu sommersemester 2010 Studentin: Koumpouli Alexandra, 3019925 Contents 1. Athens, 8th of September, 2005 2. The Junction A. The underground triangle B. The aboveground spider net 3. The fairytale A. Athens –Αι Αθήναι B. Late 19th and the 20th century C. Today 4. The Myth A. The urban square- past and present B. Imaginary signification- Hamburg 30th of July, 2010 5. Bibliography-Internet Sites 1. Athens, 8th of September, 2005 Cover or the free week press of Athens, Athens Voice My 3rd day in Athens. After settling in my new apartment, I had to find my new school : the “Polytechneion”. “ Use the metro from Peristeri to Omonoia, find the exit „ Panepistimiou‟, get out of the metro at Omonoia square and then go left, you are in Patision road. Follow this road and you will easily find the school on your right side, before the National Archaeological Museum.” This is what they told me. So, I should follow these incredibly complicated instructions… Impossible. The orientation both in the underground and the aboveground transportation network of Athens, of 6.000.000 people, is not the easiest thing for a person who spent her first seventeen years of life in a village with just 2.000 residents. However, I had to find my way. After asking several times the passersby, I managed to orientate myself in the difficult underground network of Athens (that comprises three lines!) and to find - at last - “Omonoia Station”… Artworks on the walls, hundreds of people using the escalators, running stressfully, young people playing and… infinite exits! After ten minutes of continuous wandering in one single level of the metro, I finally found the much-desired exit “Panepistimiou”. I went up the stairs, to the outside world. My mind couldn‟t stop processing the optical information, as well as the variety of intensive sounds. Confusion preponderated, overcoming the stress of getting lost. It seems funny, but the „underworld‟ of Athens seemed to me 20 times bigger than the world where I grew up in. I found it difficult to understand how the different levels worked, how different staircases led to the same platforms from different sides, and how people didn‟t get lost. On the contrary, they did everything as if they were robots. What was the relationship between what I was living at that moment and the situation I was trying to understand through the old pictures on the walls of the aboveground train station? I was doing my best to keep my concentration… Vendors, drug addicts, passersby and private policemen coexisting… Of course I shouldn‟t expect anything less from the surface than the madness that dominated the underground levels. A dirty scenery: dirty pavement tiles, gas and scents from fast food restaurants… Again the same faces: the passersby, the students, the policemen, the immigrants… What made the situation worst, were the cars and the front-wall of the various buildings. “ Nice square”, I thought. There was a strip for pedestrians, within which they could move, and then the cars and the chaos… How can somebody reach the other side of the square? I could think of two possible ways. By using the underground platforms, or by crossing the street. The traffic lights went green. A wave of people started moving towards me. Somebody pushed me. I got scared. I assumed that they wanted to steal my bag. “They steal bags in Omonoia, be careful”, I had been told. However, among this confusion I could feel the charming atmosphere. Maybe the amount and heterogeneity of people, maybe the cars and the plethora of activities, or maybe the peripheral wall of the neoclassical buildings were responsible for this feeling. I didn‟t know. For me the square consisted of two parts - the underground and the aboveground, the traffic system and the mosaic of pictures as well. I turned left… I was already walking towards the university… 2. The Junction Outline of the square Omonoia Square is one of the oldest squares of Athens, a miniature of the capital, since it is also picturesque, multicultural, c harming and commercial. Omonoia consists of the junction of the city‟s six main streets, as well as of many other smaller ones. For this reason it has always been the busiest part of Athens. People from all over the world coexist there. Vendors selling products from their home countries, stressed passersby, curious or impressed tourists, students that are going to their schools… The intensive rhythm of the city is more obvious here than in any other part of the Greek capital. A . The underground triangle Omonoia‟s print is like a spider net both in the underground and the aboveground level. In the underground square, the network of the Attic Metro is expanded to the west, north and south suburbs of Athens. Here is the central connection of the electrical railway (line 1) and the underground railway (line 2). Line 1 connects Piraeus with the center of the city and the north suburbs, leading up to Kifisia. Line 2 connects the west suburbs with the center and the south suburbs. The three central metro stations of Omonoia, Monastiraki and Syntagma, create an underground triangle, the heart Plan of the underground system of Athens. The green line 1, is the electrical of the underground transportation railway, that connects the harbor and the network. This triangle is also north suburbs. obvious in the aboveground level. The bus and trolley network is basically organized from the homonymous squares (Monastiraki, but mainly Syntagma and Omonoia). These squares are the starting point for the majority of the bus lines, and this reinforces their central character. The plan of the expansion of the underground netwok The transportation network of the center of Athens. B. The aboveground spider net However, what makes Omonoia more special than the other two squares is its role as a junction. The six roads that start there lead to very different directions, and their special physiognomy and heterogeneity contribute to the character of the square. Athinas Street : is one of the main axis of the first plan of Athens and it is historically and culturally colored. Athina‟s Street feasts small crafts with folk character, meeting points for the internal and external immigrants and of course the Town Hall and the Varvakeios market. It leads to Monastiraki square. Peiraios Street: it is a 10km long boulevard that connects Athens with Piraeus (the largest harbor of Greece) Aghiou Konstantinou Street: It connects Omonoia square with Karaiskaki square and, consequently, with the National Railway system. This factor contributes largely to the traffic level in the area. At the end of the street stands the huge and impressive temple of St Konstantinos (L. Kautantzoglou 1871- 1893) and close to Omonoia sq, the National Theater (E. Ziller 1891-1901). 3. Septemvriou Street: It drains the traffic from the square to 28. Octobriou Street, near the National Archaeological Museum and the National Technical University of Athens, leading to the north suburbs of the city. Stadiou & Panepistimiou Street: They connect Omonoia with Syntagma. They are two of the most famous streets in Athens, with excellent samples of neoclassical buildings ( National Library, The University and the Academy – Hansen, Ziller) and great samples of modern architecture. However, it should be mentioned that, despite the significance of these streets, their direct function as drainers of movement does not make them unique any longer. They are just components of the huge traffic aboveground network of the capital. View to the Omonoia Square,2010 3. The fairytale A . Athens- Αι Αθήναι On the 31st of March 1833, the Turkish guard abandoned the fortress of Acropolis. Both the Protocols of Independence, about the indisputable reveal of Athens, and the scarceness of battles in the area (in the years 1830-1833) allowed the progressive regeneration of the city. In November of 1831 the architects Stamatis Kleanthes and Eduard Schaubert, pupils of the German neoclassical architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel, settled in Athens, where they started working on a systematic survey of the city. One year later, in December 1832, they redacted the New Urban Plan of the City of Athens (in case it would become the future capital of the new State) which was approved on the 29th June 1833 by the temporary government, and validated with a Royal Edict on the 6th July 1833. According to this plan, the New City included almost half of the Old one and was extended to west, north and east. The other half was intended to be left for archeological excavations. However, the part of the Old City that was kept was used only as geographical region and not as a built area. The shape of the main axis was an isosceles triangle - Omonoia square served as its top, the Peiraios and Stadiou street as its sides, and the Ermou street as its basis. The whole orientation aimed to Piraeus (the harbor), the Stadium and basically to Acropolis. At the top of the triangle was located the Palace: the geometrical top and the top of the power of the state, a symbolic coincidence. Kleanthes and Schaubert wrote in their annex: “ They meet in such a way that the gallery of the Palace enjoys simultaneously the view of the picturesque Lycabettus, the Stadium, the Acropolis, which is rich in prideful memories, and the military and commercial ships of Piraeus”. (Mpiris 1938, p.16) The roads “Peiraios” and “Stadiou” were interrupted symmetrically from 2 rectangle squares and they were ending to 2 roundel squares: Mouson Square at the west and Mesogeia Gate at the east (Syntagma Square).