The picture that usually comes to mind when we think of Greek architecture is one of classical temples and ancient sites. This book takes a look at the Greece of reality rather than of the imagination the buildings constructed since the establishment of the modern Greek state. Greece: Modern Architectures in History 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 architectural works and projects of recent urban regeneration. This book relates Greek architecture to the rise of Modernism in Greece and abroad, and at the same time examines architecture that has a unique regional character, closely related to the natural landscape, yet which is at the same time inherently modern. But it also touches on the generic modern buildings that characterize the contemporary urban landscape, constructed in the building boom in the decades after World War Two.
With a backdrop of historical events, from the revolution of the 1820s, to the 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.