How Athens Became a Modern Metropolis

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I have traveled in many cities in the world and as I live here for many years (being Greek), unfortunately I do not consider Athens as a beautiful city , many years ago they demolish a lot of neoclassical Athenian buildings which were the style of the city , like Paris have the Haussman buildings style , here we do not have any longer any specific style it is an anarchy of different buildings , and what I can confirm is that Athens is an Ugly city , with Dirty streets , lack of harmony in the buildings and poorly maintained pavements , lots of smudges graffitis , and very poor vegetation , cars parked all over the city with no respect to the handicapped citizens , I have also the feeling that the Athenians are not loving their city , if only we had a good mayor , many of the above points could be ameliorate but unfortunately it is not the case for the time being. What I can write is that this city has some nice spots , either in the city center or the south of the capital with our riviera expanding to some of the nicest districts of the city or the north with modern buildings and classy old ones . In my opinion for a tourist , visiting Athens is good for 3 nights maximum , we do have fantastic cuisine and a big variety of restaurants , roof tops cafes , many shops , and indeed very interesting museums and art galleries . In order not to mention only the negative points , what I really like in Athens is going out to the square of most of the districts and enjoy a coffee , a snack or a food in a nice and friendly atmosphere .
If the laws were respected this city could be much more nicer but never beautiful…but I am afraid it is to late now, let's hope the new generation of Athenians will make the difference in the future of this old city 🙂

As an Athenian myself I used to never appreciate the humanity of Athens until I moved abroad for a few years. Now being back home I find so much beauty in it, both the center and the suburbs. I find polykatikies beautiful. It's definitely more beautiful than apartment buildings I've seen abroad. Because it actually looks like people are living in those homes.

How about Athens just starts with a law that says if you don't paint your house every 3 years you get a 10K per apartment fine – much of the ugliness is just the absolute self centeredness of most Greeks and most Athenians in not even just painting their buildings and replacing old tattered awnings and balcony blinds (what is this guy even talking about, about how Greeks are community centered, yeah, maybe 50 years ago – Greeks today are the most self centered and short sighted people I know – and it's not for lack of money or resources; your neighbor will have an iPhone 15 and a BMW but his house looks like its a trap house and hasn't been painted in 30 years with a tattered awning and garbage and weeds in the front).

Greece honestly needs a mayor or PM with dictatorial powers to enforce the most basic things like painting buildings and planting trees.

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It is the first time i hear that locals and tourists say that Athens in the ugliest city..do you have a serious survey to back this opinion?if not, do not spread false, subjective and arbitrary opinions…=and by the way..Athens has become a popular destination for millions of tourist during the last years..they know better than you I imagine

The polykatoikia look ugly but in an aesthetic way. Kinda like Soviet Blocs.

39:12 – This doesn't look beautiful or finished at all. It looks like a set of underconstruction buildings with bridges to other buildings without fences who nobody would build because there's no point of interconnection unless there's something to profit from, that the only thing that makes it look remotely beautiful is the trees and the lighting below them in the night.
The trees here are an optical illusion that makes every architectural project look x10 more beautiful and overrated than it is, that's why architects love placing huge trees everywhere. Remove the trees, and you IMMEDIATELY see every bad thing about this architecture and you don't have to be an architect to notice them at all. It's fundamentally flawd.
Lie not, nobody would put trees on top and maintain them, unless they were forced to. Nobody would love to maintain something they don't own at all unless there's a rule for it.
I feel like an a**hole for saying and dare you I am, but I say the truth when I say that these student projects are more often than usual an impractical imagination of architects who haven't realized how reality really functions.

The polykatoikias in major city centres are absolute eyesores. Filthy and very poorly maintained. They are a constant source of stress to the eye.

Shame we completely abandoned traditional greek architectural elements for these concrete abominations. I get it was cheaper and easier to design and build but still…

Also living in one is typically stressful. Tenants can hardly agree on anything and there's so much drama, especially amongst older, long-time residents…

This year in Athens I saw a 1960 building with wooden siding. The wooden siding they put recently really changed its appearance and it was nice. I said to myself ''they should do this on every 1960s and 1970s building''. The problem is maintenance in many streets. As well as the fact Athens grew up with tragedies, not with a plan : 1922 expulsion of Asia Minor Greeks, 1944-1949 civil war and mass rural exodus. In the 60s and in the 70s they tried to build ''modern'' buildings but it was one of the worst periods of the history of architecture. So yes Athens is not a nice city. But there are many Greek smaller cities where life is fine.

The real problem is that you cant really work anything anywhere but athens.
my grandfather lives in arkadia since 30 years (we are austrians) and you cant find a job there because there are not many tourists (manly greek) and no industries for anything. just rocks and boulders.
so they need to go to athens to do a job outside of tourism and everyday needs. being an engineer even nurse or teacher requires very big big cities. so they of course come to athens and hate it there because they actually want to be somewhere else but they simply cant.

You should visit Thessaloniki. It has alot of architectural buildings. It's a beautiful city.

Loving the inclusion of Athenian Urbanism by Lefteris Volanis. He & his band No Clear Mind have a great body of work. To whoever is reading this comment, I recommend giving them a listen.

Filthy graffiti everywhere , ugly polykatoikies, very little green space

Athens is probably the only major european city that didnt get destroyed in the WWII by bombings but we destroyed it ourselves. The appartments blocks and the non existent urban planning is what makes it one of the ugliest major cities in the world. Apart from a few neighbourhoods (around Acropolis and Filopapou) everything else is unlivable by European standards. Anyone who believes otherwise has either never been to another country or is completely delusional.
The reasons for that extreme amount of apartment blocks and how ugly Athens became are so many that would take another one hour video just to explain… Unstable political situations after WWII, dead economy, therefore no serious infrastructure to "expand" the city, almost no way for young people to get a job in other parts of the country …. and the list goes on and on and on.

I'm visiting Athens rn. This will definitely influence how I experience this city

There are still so many beautiful neo-classical buildings. But, unfortunately, hundreds of them were pulled down in the 1960s to make Athens "a modern City". Every year, more & more are being renovated – which is great to see, but it's SO costly.

I love Athens . There are some amazing pockets to it. While I dislike the vandalism, it has some spectacular street art. Especially in Metaxourgeio.