The picture that usually comes to mind when we think of Greek architecture is one of classical temples and historic ruins. This book takes a look at the Greece of reality rather than of imagination - the buildings constructed since the establishment of the modern Greek state. A penetrating yet accessible analysis, "Greece" provides a new understanding of modern Greek history and its architecture, introducing buildings, architects, and the ideas that shaped them, from the mid-nineteenth century neoclassical buildings for the new state to contemporary minimalist buildings and projects of recent urban regeneration.This book relates modern architecture to the rise of Modernism in the arts, and at the same time examines works that have a unique regional character, yet which are inherently modern. But it also discusses the generic and banal modern buildings that characterise the built environment of contemporary Greece, constructed in the building boom in the decades after World War II. With a backdrop of historical events, from the revolution of the 1820s, to the two World Wars in the twentieth century, a civil war, military dictatorship, socialist party politics and '90s consumerist boom, the authors provide a unique, critical account of modern and contemporary Greek architecture.

Author Biography

Alexander Tzonis is Professor and Chair of Architectural Theory and Design Methods at the University of Technology of Delft, The Netherlands. He is author of many books including The Shape of Community (1972, with Serge Chermayeff), Architecture in Europe since 1968, Between Memory and Invention (1992, with Liane Lefaivre), and Le Corbusier: Poetics of Machine and Metaphor (2001).Alkistis Rodi is an architect based in Athens.