Kountouriotika Refugee Settlement: 1923 Red Cross Films

How is it possible that the first organized humanitarian action by the Greek immigrants in the U.S. could disappear from the annals of history? Although I have not quite verified this by any primary sources, Greek-Americans raised funds in 1923 to build the earliest refugee settlement in Athens. The settlement was known as Emirikon or, more commonly, as Kountouriotika, after Greek Admira (and later President) Paul Kountouriotis, who managed the distribution of the Greek diaspora relief funds. Kountouriotika is a unique settlement. It preceded the refugee housing built by the Refugee Settlement Commission (1923-1930) and the housing blocks built by the Greek government in the 1930s. The most famous of these, the Alexandras Avenue Apartments designed by the Le Corbusier trained Kimon Lascaris (1933-1935), has so dominated the architectural discourse over public housing, that it has eclipsed any interest on its American project across the street. 

The corner of Alexandras and Vasilisis Sofias Avenue has a layered history. It houses Greece's oldest continuously used stadium (for ther Panathenaic Soccer Team) and was inaugurated the same year as the refugee crisis. The Greek American diaspora invested in this corner a second time, paying for the field's light electrification in 1938. The corner is also the site of the infamous Averof Prisons, where political prisoners were held during the Fascist Regime of Metaxas (1937-40) and the colonel junta (1967-74). Like the Kountouriotika settlement, Averof Prisons were torn down in the 1970s.

Although I'm certain there is some Greek scholarship on Kountoriotika, I am surprised that it has not received greater attention. I am grateful to conversations with Jack Davies, who has explored this settlement even further in his archival work and with Alexander Kitroeff, the expert on the Panathenaikos Stadium. The limelight of Kountouriotika is 1923, when it was presented as a model project for humanitarian aid. It was quickly superseded with other projects, such as the refugee settlement at Pangrati, named Vyronas in 1924 (at the centennial of Lord Byron's death). 

My first photographic discovery of Kountouriotika was in the Frank and Frances Carpenter Collection at the Library of Congress. During his journey through Greece in 1923, Carpenter took photographed the refugee crisis. In the photo below, he notes: "A refugee city that was built by Greek Americans--A model of cleanliness and order."

This weekend, I became aware of another visual source for the Kountouriotika refugee settlement, thanks to the Greek Red Cross and Stephanie Larson. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has digitized its audiovisual collection and made it available to the public online. The collection includes seven reels documenting the 1923 refugee crisis in Greece. 

The reels offer invaluable evidence for the archaeology of humanitarian relief and, specifically, on the construction of Kountouriotika. The reels were recorded in 1923 by Rodolphe de Reding Biberegg, the ICRC delegate in Greece. De Reding took over the delegation in 1922 after the abdication of King George (Queen Sophia had been the president of the Greek Red Cross and, naturally, resigned). De Reding's activities in Greece are best documented in a recent article by David Rodogno, “The American Red Cross and the International Committee of the Red Cross’ Humanitarian Politics and Policies in Asia Minor and Greece (1922-1923),” First World War Studies 5:1 (2014), pp. 83-99. De Reding's first accomplishments was to convert the abandoned Stringos light bulb factory into a shelter for 2,500 refugees and to organize numerous soup kitchens. An even greater accomplishment was to manage the construction of Kountouriotika and herald it as a model refugee settlement. It is for this precise paradigmatic reason that the reels were filmed. Rodogno argues that "the construction of this showcase village was supposed to demonstrate to both Greek authorities and international donors that it was possible to find a permanent solution to the settlement of the refugees." (94)

The ICRC film is perhaps the most thorough documentation of this experiment. The settlement included a textile factory, a school, kitchens, a hospital, and a church. The film also shows working textile workers. It also shows the construction of yet another refugee settlement, which I have not yet identified. It is constructed by wood rather than brick. This is the German (Γερμανικά) type of housing, which took its name from the wood that the German government gave to Greece as part of its World War I reparations. Most architectural historians concur that no wooden structure of this type survives today, but I am hopeful that we might have simply not looked hard enough.

I have only began to scratch the surface on the archaeological value of these ICRC films entitled "The Greek-Turkish War: Greece 1923." But first, I provide here a general overview and links of the seven digitized films. Each film has a reference number and a link to its source. The most relevant reels for Kountouriotika are numbers 7, 8, 9, and the end of 10. The description is quoted directly from the ICRC Audiovisual Archive.

V-F-CR-H-00001-5
Individual portraits of all members of the International Commission for the Exchange of Turkish and Greek Civilian and Military Prisoners in front of the ICRC delegation in Athens. Established by the agreement of January 30, 1923 between Greece and Turkey on the exchange of prisoner of war, the commission works from February 27, 1923 (first report) to September 15, 1923 (departure of the ICRC delegate in Smyrna, dr Schatmann). Members: President Colonel Eduard Wildbolz (Swiss RC); Dr. Page (Swiss CR); Dr. Lindsjöe (Swedish CR); Commander J. Cottakis (Greek Gov.); Ali Muzaffer Bey (Turkish Govt) and Paul Schazmann (Intermediate at Smyrna from February to September 1923, made two fact-finding missions to Turkish prisoners of war in Greece in January 1922 and January 1923).

V-F-CR-H-00001-6
The first plans show the embarkation of Turkish refugees on a liner. A second sequence shows a refugee camp at the seaside in which many Turks wait to be embarked. The latest plans show the International Commission for the Exchange of Turkish and Greek Civilian and Military Prisoners in its entirety on the wharf and in front of the ICRC delegation in Athens (same plan as in V F CR-H-00001-5). Members: President Colonel Eduard Wildbolz (Swiss RC); Dr. Page (Swiss CR); Dr. Lindsjöe (Swedish CR); Commander J. Cottakis (Greek Gov.); Ali Muzaffer Bey (Turkish Government) and Paul Schazmann (Intermediary at Smyrna, Feb. 1923, who made two fact-finding missions to Turkish prisoners of war in Greece in January 1922 and January 1923). 

V-F-CR-H-00001-7
The film presents the different stages of the construction of the village "Embirikon" built thanks to the support of the mission of Reding and the subsidies sent by the Greeks of America to permanently lodge part of the refugees in brick houses. The construction of this village by the Greek refugees is the subject of this film .. It shows the work of the various workers (masons, carpenters, carpenters, etc. ..)

V-F-CR-H-00001-8
The film shows several weaving and sewing workshops where girls work. The images also contain two scenes of children's meals. The emblem of the International Union of Help to Children appears in most plans. A map shows children entering one of the brick houses that are being built in V F CR-H-00001-7. 

V-F-CR-H-00001-9
The first plans show the installation of families in the village "Embirikon". We see Rodolphe de Reding. The following plans show the construction of a camp of ten white tents. The latest plans show the construction of a wooden barracks camp, a gift from the Imperial war fund.

V-F-CR-H-00001-10
The film shows King George II and Queen Mary of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in front of the ICRC and International Children's Relief Union delegations in Athens. Following a ceremony of awards ceremony in which the king participates in an amphitheater; hard to know what exactly it is. Finally, the royal couple visit the village "Embirikon"

V-F-CR-H-00001-11
The film shows food coming and going in the Save the Children Fund depot and a visit by two Save the Children Fund delegates from a children's school (or orphanage). The Save the Children Fund sign appears three times in these images.

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Agora Photo Archive

I have returned from a productive summer field season and a rather neglected blog. One of my summer goals included closer looks in Greek archival collections: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, the Gennadeion, The British School in Athens, and the Corinth Excavation Archives. James Herbst (Corinth Excavations Architect and Drawings Archivists) helped me conceptualize a project involving the 19th-century houses that American archaeologists tore down in the '30s at the Athenian Agora. As an urban excavation, the Athenian Agora had to purchase a number of properties in order to excavate below them. This necessary demolition has not been received positively by contemporary Athenians. Interestingly enough, those houses were carefully documented before demolition. In a paradoxical twist, the architectural and photographic record of the demolished houses constitute the best preserved record of pre-Modernist Athens. Inevitably, these houses would have been demolished by developers in the 1960s and 1970s and replaced with multi-story apartment blocks. In contrast to the developers, the archaeologists documented their deconstruction in painstaking detail.

Like Corinth's, the Athenian Agora's archives have been digitized and available to the public, see http://agathe.gr. They are a great new resource for historians of photography and urbanism. Browsing through the photos, one notices glimpses of daily life. I cannot help to think of Roland Barthes "punctum" conceived soon after his mother's death, see, Camera Lucida (1980). My mother was raised in this neighborhood and  could easily be one of the children shown in the photos. Above, you see daily life in Areopagou Street photographed in 1937  [Image 1997.19.0002]. Beyond their obvious architectural information, these photos capture wonderful historical issues ranging from identity to politics. One of my favorite photos below, shows a family that has poked its heads to see the American photographer capture their home before demolition. On the right corner of the wall, a prominent stencil shows the hammer-and-sickle and the message "Vote Communist." A whole thesis could be written on this image. Masonry, closed shutters, political affiliation, the four women and the invisible photographer engage in a moment of indecision. [Image 1997.19.0146]

To see more photos of houses, see here.

The Canonical View

Arthur and Kate Tode (Kahop) made a honeymoon video in 1939 with tremendous value for reconstructing the vernacular streetscape of Athens between World War II. In the previous posting, I discussed their vantage point and visual coverage. The Tode's vantage point towards the urban fabric had become the canonical perspective. Every visitor that climbed the Acropolis in the 1930s was directed to the same observation post from which they visually consumed the modern metropolis. The view was disseminated globally through the personal snap shots that each tourist brought home, as well as, with more official media of mail order periodicals.

The National Geographic Magazine canonized this Athenian vantage point in October 1930 with the photograph above in an article on Vergil's Roman geography, written by Georgetown University's president. Interestingly enough, the caption foreshadows the tension that would emerge between American archaeologists and the modern city when the American School would start digging in the Agora a year later. The caption reads, "After seeing the Temple of Athena Victory, the Propylaea, the Erechtheum with its lovely Caryatid Porch, and the Parthenon, visitors to the Acropolis are conducted to this lookout point above the modern city. In Vergil's day the main city was around to the left, where American archaeologists are soon to tear down scores of homes in order to excavate the ancient market place." W. Coleman Nevils, "The Perennial Geographer," The National Geographic Magazine 58, no. 4 (Oct. 1930), p. 452.

I would like to use the photo above and the Tode film previously to stage a photographic investigation of Athens' architecture in the 1930s. The exercise would, on the one hand, help understand 1930s urban topography, but could also stage a reflexive inquiry on the construction of distant visions. When the photo students visit this very spot in July, we could even stage a rephotographing campaign.

Film Archaeology: 1939 Athens

Thanks to Facebook (Jan Sanders via Stavros Oikonomidis), I stumbled on an intoxicating film of Athens. It was shot by Arthur and Kate Tode (Kahop) on April 25, 1939 during their Mediterranean honeymoon. The original reel resides at the Archives of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (see here). The Tode film is the earliest color panorama of modern Athens that I have seen. It has an uncanny quality with Athenian residents visible in the streets of Plaka. Athens was one of the most beautiful cities of Europe in the 30s and this film can help us reconstruct its historical character. I am envisioning a collective project of film archaeology, where a group of people use online resources and deconstruct each frame. With a combination of freeze-frame sketches and maps, we could produce a powerful visual inventory of Athenian vernacular.


I spent a good hour playing the first 17 secs, over and over again, trying to pick up topographical clues that would reveal the real locations. This is what I have come up with. The camera is set on the northeast corner of the Acropolis next to the flag (lat/long 37°58'18.65"N, 23°43'41.19"W). The axis of the camera is aligned with Epiharmou Street in Plaka and pans over Anaphiotika and Plaka. I reconstruct the vantage with the aid of Google Earth (below). The dome and bell tower visible on the foreground belongs to Agios Nikolaos Rangavas. The line of sight down Epiharmou Street is terminated by an Ottoman period house owned by George Finlay. The street turns West as Scholiou Street. The next parallel street line is Adrianou. As the camera pans out, we see grand buildings along Vasilisis Sofias and Lykavitos rising in the distance. The video represents a 20 degree angle from the Acropolis to Lykaviots and covers the NW sliver of the city. The camera also makes a slight norther turn towards Tourkovounia. Using contemporary plans of Athens, it should be possible to create a database of every building represented. Archaeologists of early modernity could go out into the streets and spot-check the urban fabric. I suspect that the majority of the vernacular architecture seen in the video exist no more. Anyone want to join me in an experiment of video archaeology? If you enjoyed this filmic inquiry, make sure to visit earlier postings on the archaeology of Athenian modernity here, here and here.

Liquid Altar

The Drinker block discussed earlier was discovered at the ancient Asclepeion on the South slopes of the Acropolis in Athens. Excavated by the Greek Archaeological Society in 1877, the few surviving Byzantine walls were removed soon after excavation ("ταύτην μελετώμεν να διαλύσωμεν"). Recognizing the ethics of archaeological documentation, however, the Archaeological Society left a small record of the architecture, hiring M. Mitsakis to produce a site plan ("Η Εταιρία έχει το καθήκον όταν προσεχώς συντελέση την ανασκαφήν, να δημοσιεύση και σχεδιογράφημα του κτίσματος ακριβές."). Above, I have extracted some of the crucial elements to visualize the architectural dialectics of caves and water.

The ancient cave (marked "A") from which water sprang, was converted into a Christian altar. The excavators discovered frescoes along the lining of the cave, but could not make up the subject matter. An upright stone placed on the altar ledge (left) marked the religious character of the cave. The pseudo-Kufic decoration on the upper border helps us date the installation to the Middle-Late Byzantine period. Other sculptural fragments published by Xyngopoulos testify to the occupation of the site. Adjacent to the sacred water cave was an ancient stoa. In the Byzantine period, the ruined foundations of the stoa were used to create a new building (marked in dark lines above) that included a square room ("D") on the east end. Most intriguing in Mitsakis' drawing are the three semi-circular lines signifying the existence of a church with three consecutive phases of alteration.

Completing the water narrative of the site, note the channel ("C") that carried the water from the cave under the church floors into a cistern ("F"). Remembering the drinker graffiti representing the thirst-quenching experience of water, we may extend the vessel cavity into the water cave. The cave-altar becomes a cavity to be inhabited. The water would then exit the cavity through piping (the neck) and be recollected below the body of the church into the cistern.

The sacral metaphors of water are well known in the Byzantine scholarship and found numerous architectural expressions. The waters in the crypt of Saint Demetrius in Thessaloniki or in the crypt of Saint Andrew in Patras are two of the first examples that come to mind. The Byzantine installations on the South Slopes of the Acropolis should be remembered as additional evidence for the spatial articulation of the phenomenology of liquids.

The sketch plan above is based on M. Mitsakis drawing appearing in Praktika (1878). The altar stone is based on a drawing by Josef Strzygowski published by Andreas Xyngopoulos in "Χριστιανικόν Ασκληπείον" Archaiologike Ephemeris (1915), p. 62, fig. 14. It measures 0.95 x 0.34 m.

For those interested in the fine details of the cave, here is the eye-witness report given by Ioannis Phillipos in his Jan. 9, 1877, report: "Ολίγον δε κατωτέρω η πέτρα είναι ορθίως τετμημένη επί μέτρα 25 περίπου προς δυσμάς και υπ'αυτήν κατωτάτω εφανερώθη εν σπήλαιον κωνικού σχήματος τα έσω, με είσοδον κτιστήν, τους τοίχους του δ'εσώθεν έχον επίχριστους και εζωγραφημένους με εικόνας χριστιανικάς, δυσδιαγνώστους διά την εκ του χρόνου φθοράν. Εν αυτώ κατά τον κάτω γύρον αποστάζει εκ της πέτρας και ύδωρ, το οποίον κύκλω περιλαμβάνεται εκ μαρμαρίνω ευρίπω και διοχετεύεται ύστερον έξω διά τας μετ' ολίγον μνημονευθησομένας εκκλησίας μέχρις ου καταπίπτει εις εν φρεατοειδές κτιστόν όρυγμα." Praktika (1877) pp. 17-17.

My rough translation: "A little below, the rock is cut for about 25 meters to the West. Under the rock, we found a cave with a conical interior shape. Its entrance was built with masonry. In the interior, the wall were plastered and were painted with Christian scenes, but it was difficult to discern the subject due to deterioration. Under the lower circle, water drips from the rock. The water is collected by a circular marble feature and is then routed outside of the cave through pipes. The pipes continue under the ancient stoa and under the churches (to be discussed below) depositing the water in a built cistern."

The Drinker

Architectural block (0.84 x 0.38 x 0.07 m), Byzantine, South Slopes, Acropolis, Athens. Kourelis sketch, based on photo (Xyngopoulos, 1924)

Scratched roughly on a piece of masonry, a figure drinks with one hand while fanning with the other. The block was excavated in 1877 at the Sanctuary of Asclepius on the South Slopes of the Acropolis in Athens. It was published in 1924 as a personification of August. The Byzantine remains of the Asclepeion have been forgotten by scholarship. The site contained no less than three consecutive churches, a cave altar dripping with water, frescoes, burials, and lots of sculptural fragments from the Middle and Late Byzantine periods. I will discuss the architecture in the next posting.

The block of the drinking figure is striking in its graphic convention of depicting the interior of the vessel with a sectional diagram. The drawing, thus, communicates what is invisible, the interior container of the liquid as it is depleted through the mouth of the drinker. It helps us clarify the spatial experience of drinking. The neck of the vessel and our mouths are two extended thresholds that transfer water from one invisible interior (the vessel) to another (our belly). The figure raises a vessel to his mouth. He will soon swallow its contents capturing that moment of satisfaction offered by the exchange in a hot summer month. Drawing the vessel in section, thus, clarifies the spatial nature of thirst. It doesn't simply represent what drinking looks like, but it tries to encapsulates the essence of drinking as a spatial experience. The cavity that holds water before it enters the body is terminated by a kind of lip in the interior of the vessel. The hand clasps the diaphragm of the vessel and commands its release. The diagramatic depiction of the vessel may also lead the viewer into other bodily associations of the womb and female genitalia.

The carver scratched a phenomenological experience through a complicated system of graphic abstraction. Liquid transfers through interiorities. If we look at the architectural setting of the Byzantine Asclepeion (in the next posting), we will see that the transfer of water takes over the entire spatial expression of the complex. In other words, this small depiction is a moment in a larger phenomenological experience originating from the origins of water in the dripping cave.

Briefly, I summarize the paper trail from this excavation. The Asclepeion was excavated by the Greek Archaeological Society in 1877. The Byzantine remains were discussed by Philippos Ioannou, in Praktika (1877), 17-20. M. Mitsakis, an architectural intern at the Polytechneion, surveyed the Byzantine walls before they were demolished, publishing his plan in Praktika (1878). A quarter century later, Andreas Xyngopoulos published the Byzantine sculpture from the site, "Χριστιανικόν Ασκληπείον," Archaiologike Ephemeris (1915), pp. 52-71, but did not include the drinker. Andreas Xyngopoulos devoted a separate article on the drinker in the debut issue of the journal of the Society of Byzantine Studies, "Βυζαντινή παράστασις μηνός," Epeteris Etaireias Vyzantinon Spoudon 1 (1924), pp. 180-188. In this essay, Xyngopoulos argues that the image above belongs to a tradition of month personifications, specifically August. Accordingly, the seated August quenches his thirst with wine and cools himself with a fan. In addition to iconographic comparanda, Xyngopoulos quotes a relevant passage from the 15th-century novel Lyvistros and Rodamni.

"Είδα τον Αύγουστον απ'αυτόν, τέτοιον και κείνον φίλε, να ένε από κάυματα έμψυχος εις την όψιν. να στέκεη τάλα εις λουτρόν λουσμένος, κτενισμένος. να ένε εκ τα κάυμα έδιψος. και εις το έναν τον χέριν κούπαν εκράτει με κρασί και έπινεν δια την θέρμην και εις το άλλον του εβάσταζεν χαρτί μετά γραμμάτων και το έγραφεν. φίλε μου, άκουσε να το μάθης τους κάψει η θέρμη του λουτρού, τους φλέξει και διψήσουν, κατάψυχον ας πίνουσι οίνον, μην τ' αθετούσιν."

The novel was translated into English by Gavin G. Bates, Three Modern Greek Romances (New York, 1995). I will get the English translation next time I visit the Penn library.

Brick Stories

In Vasari's hierarchy of art, it doesn't get much lower than bricks. Byzantine archaeology tends to disagree. Back in 1954, Alison Frantz excavated the Church of the Holy Apostles in the Athenian Agora and directed its restoration. The works were published in, Frantz, Agora XX: The Church of the Holy Apostles (Princeton, 1971).

Today, I'd like to showcase a rare working drawings from the annals of Byzantine wall decoration. Paying attention to tossed bricks pays off. The exterior walls of Holy Apostles make extensive use of pseudo-Kufic ceramic decoration. Byzantine architectural historians know that these decorations pretend to look like Arabic script but were executed by artists who did not know the language. Byzantine pseudo-Kufic is an early form of Orientalism, if you will. To read more about this interesting topic, see George Miles, DOP 18, 1964 and Laskarina Bouras' study of Hosios Loukas.

During the Holy Apostles conservation, Frantz found a broken half brick in the rubble core of the south wall of the south apse. The rough side of the brick contains a drawing in black that looks like an architectural sketch working out a pseudo-Kufic pattern. As Frantz notes, the sketch does not match any of the designs precisely, but it best resembles one of the 37 recorded designs (Fig. 2, no. 6). I've sketched the sketch above (based on photo, pl. 5b) and the executed design below. Isn't that amazing? I'm telling you, there's much wisdom in bricks and tiles.

The design sketch is one of the few examples of Byzantine process drawings that survive. Obviously, it served its ephemeral purpose. The artist sorted out what he wanted to sort out and then dumped it. As the brick was already broken, it was of no architectural use. It was scrap. Vasilis Marinis and I have organized a session, "From Idea to Building: Ancient and Medieval Architectural Process" for the annual meeting of the Society of Architectural Historians (April 18-22, 2012, Detroit), which will address such issues of drawings as process.

Frantz's Holy Apostles restoration was completed in 1956 just in time for the dedication ceremonies of the Stoa of Attalos on Sept. 3, 1956. Whereas the Stoa of Attalos has dominated the brunt of criticism against American imperialism, few speak of the Holy Apostles in the same vein. I am not sure of the politics, but it seems that Frantz saved the monument single-handedly and guaranteed funding from the Kress Foundation for its restoration. I have heard apocryphal stories about the anti-Byzantine attitudes of 1950s Agora, but I haven't verified them. But I digress.

Three Fingers of Clay

I have begun working on the Byzantine house publications of Chersonesos for Adam Rabinowitz's upcoming monograph, Excavations in the South Region of Chersonesos, 2001-2006: A Multidisciplinary Approach, ed. Adam Rabinowitz, Larissa Sedikova and Paul Arthur.

One aspect of the study will reconstruct the roof system based on fragments unearthed in the complex's debris. The scholarship on house roofs is practically non-existent, since most medieval houses of the period hardly survive above a few courses.

I will start with a wonderful ancient building inscription that records the restoration of a covered walkway in Athens' city walls in 306 BCE. It's a valuable document because it discusses the juncture between the roof tiles and the wooden beam support: “And after laying upon the sheathing moistened rushes [κάλαμον], and under these (i.e. between the planks) beanstalks [λοβόν] or rushes he shall cover the whole with a layer of clay mixed with straw [δορώσι] three dactyls in thickness.” Although the text is 1,000 years before the houses at Chersonesos, it gives some insights on a vernacular building method with a long afterlife. It gives a precise measurement of three fingers (1 1/2 inches) for a layer of clay mixed with straw as the binding agent.

My explanatory sketch above is based on L. D. Caskey, “The Roofed Gallery on the Walls of Athens,” American Journal of Archaeology (1910) 14, pl. V.

Frankish Church in Chalandri: Franciscan?

My last post, where I reported on a little-known new excavation of a Frankish chapel in Athens, generated a wonderful discussion among a group of specialists, notably Diana Wright, "The Duke of Athens Makes His Will," Surprised By Time (Aug. 12, 2011) and Pierre MacKay, who knows Mendicants in Greece like nobody's business

I would like to report on the paper trail on the identification of Chalandri's Frangomonastiro with the Franciscans. The Deltion article reported succinctly on the excavation of the 13th-c. chapel and marshaled all the recent citations, primarily the 1960 Greek translation of William Miller's Latins in the Levant. So, the question remains. Is this really a Franciscan foundation? and if so, what are the arguments for such an attribution?

The main citation for a Franciscan attribution was the Greek edition of William Miller's classic, The Latins in the Levant: A History of Frankish Greece 1204-1566 (New York, 1908). Those that know the history of this unsurpassed work know that the legendary Byzantinist (and once Prime Minister) Spyridon Lambros produced a Greek translation immediately after the English original, in his journal Νέος Ελληνομνήμων (1909). Lambros' translation basically endorsed Miller's volume as the best available history of Frankish Greece and antiquated a whole lot of earlier studies (Buchon, Hopf, etc.) for Greek readers. In 1960, Angelos Phouriotis produced a complete translation of Latins in the Levant with the added bonus of updated annotations and illustrations, Ιστορία της Φραγκοκρατίας στην Ελλάδα (Athens, 1960). In other words, the Greek 1960 translation surpasses the English original in its inclusions of 50 years of scholarly commentary.

So, here is my reconstructed chronology for Frangomonastiro.

1851. The will of Walter V de Brienne (1312) is published by Marie Henry d'Arbois de Jubainville, “Testament de Gautier V de Brienne, duc d’Athènes,” in Voyage paléographique dans le département de l'Aube (Paris, 1851), pp. 332-340. . d'Arbois de Jubainville publishes this material again in, Catalogue d'acted des comtes de Brienne 950-1354 (Paris 1872), p. 44. The will is vague about money that de Brienne left for the Franciscans of Athens.

1881. The name "Franko Monastiri" is first identified in Ernst Curtius and Johannes Augustus Kaupert's atlas, Karten von Attika (Berlin, 1881), pl. 5 (Download here). Elements of buildings are still standing.

1892. The ruins of a building (not existing anymore) are mentioned by Tassos D. Neroutsos in the pioneering study, "Χριστιανικαί Αθήναι (Christian Athens)" Β'1 "Η εκκλησία Αθηνών επί Φραγκοκρατίας (The Churches of Athens in the Frankish Period" Δελτίον της Ιστορικής και Εθνολογικής Εταιρείας 4 (1892), pp. 51-204. Naroutsos's account is the first Greek topographical investigation of Frankish monuments in Attica. Sadly, Neroutsos died the same year section B'1 was published. He is the first scholar to suggest a connection between Frangomonastiro in Chalandri and de Brienne's Franciscans. This is what Neroutsos says, and you can see hat the association is just speculation: "Σ'αυτή την περίοδο, επίσης ανέρχεται το "Φραγκομονάστηρο" που τα ερείπια του για καιρό βρίσκονταν στους πρόποδες του Πεντελικού και πιθανόν να είταν η έδρα των Μινωριτών, που μνημονεύονται στη διαθήκη του τελευταίου δούκα." ["'Frangomonastiro' belongs to this period. The ruins of Frangomonastiro were to be found on the slopes of Mount Pentelikon for many years. This is probably the Franciscan center that [de Brienne's] will commemorates."](p. 82, n. 65)

1908. William Miller publishes Latins in the Levant. He discusses de Brienne's will but makes not association with Chalandri.

1933. Anastasios Orlandos mentions the ruins in his Index of Medieval Monuments of Greece, Ευρετήριον των Μεσαιωνικών Μνημείων της Ελλάδος 3 (1933), p. 177.

1960. Citing Neroutsos, Phouriotis mentions the possibility that the Chalandri Frangomonastiro may have received de Brienne's benefaction as a Franciscan monastery.

2001. Rescue excavation of Frangomonastiro, in the building of Attike Odos. Neroutsos suggestion, via Phouriotis is reconsidered.

In short, there is no strong reason to associate this building with Franciscans, although it is certainly Frankish. This quick fact-checking exercise has produced all kinds of interesting questions. You might note from his will that de Brienne commissioned a church at Lecce for his memory. Wouldn't it be interesting to compare the church in Italy with the duke's buildings in Greece? We are confronted with a truly global order that moves beyond Greece-France. Whether Franciscan or not, the little chapel on the slopes of Mount Penteli need to be related to the more famous Frankish Monastery excavated by Anastasios Orlandos. It is important to note that Orlandos implicated the Franciscans in this building, as well, although he argues that the building was a Greek church that might have been later sold to Latins monastics (to explain the toponym Frankish Monastery).

Frankish Church in Chalandri

It is not everyday that a new Crusader church is discovered. During the constructions of the Attike Odos in Chalandri, Athens, the Greek Archaeological Service carried out rescue excavations at a small chapel dated to the 13th century. Given the huge delay in Greek publications, this project was just recently published in the Archaiologikon Deltion. Few libraries in the U.S. subscribe to this journal, so I review the finds here. My sketch below interprets the original configuration based on the report by Aikaterine Pantelious, "Συμβολή Λεωφόρου Πεντέλης και Αττικής Οδού. Φραγκοκκλησιά," Αrchaiologikon Deltion 56-59 (2001-2004) [2010], B'1, pp. 512-515.
The "Frangokklisia" is a single nave chapel with a later narthex addition. Hundreds of such churches exist in medieval villages and kastros but very few have been published. Their size and vernacular characteristics are not spectacular enough for most art historians. If someone brought together the evidence for such chapels from the 12th-15th c., however, we would see that they represent a dominant form of religious space and outrank the better-known masterpieces. Their small size, moreover, addresses all kinds of interesting questions about private versus public forms of worship, as raised by Thomas Mathews 30 years ago in his seminal, "Private Liturgy in Byzantine Architecture: Toward a Reappraisal," Cahiers Archeologique 39 (1982), pp. 125-138.

Frangokklisia in Chalandri is especially interesting because it was designed with a funerary function in mind, judging from the arcosoleum that protrudes from the South wall (Tomb 3). The later narthex housed two additional burials (Tombs 1 &2), but it is hard to say how much later this space was added. A damaged section of the semicircular apse (marked "x" in my sketch) revealed a deposit of 15 denier coins, giving the building a nice terminus ante quem of 1280. Given the disturbed nature of the site, no further stratigraphic observations could be made.

A building was first noted here by Anastasios Orlandos, Ευρετήριον των Μεσαιωνικών Μνημείων της Ελλάδος 3 (1933), p. 177. The name "Franko Monastiri" was first identified at this location in Ernst Curtius and Johannes Augustus Kaupert's important survey, Karten von Attika (Berlin, 1881), pl. 5 (Download here). The excavators have associated this funerary chapel with a Franciscan Monastery mentioned in the will of Walter V of Brienne, Duke of Athens. I am not qualified to evaluate this identification, I leave this to Pierre MacKay and Diana Wright.

All things considered, this is an archaeological discovery whose significance is inverseley related to the size of the excavated building (only 12 ft wide). It contributes to the growing corpus of medieval mini-churches, as well as, to future investigations of funerary chapels, and (potentially) to the history of the Franciscan Order in Greece. Congratulations to the 1st Ephoria of Byzantine Antiquities in Greece for this spectacular find, which should have made headline news. I urge all readers to read the article in the Deltion (I can email you scans if your library does not subscribe).

Dream Neighborhood: Athenian Agora

Continuing some thoughts and some screenings on the topic of Athenian Film archaeology, I return to the Athenian Agora excavations, America's most vivid archaeological presence in the world began in 1932. See my posting "Stella: Athenian Agora" (Feb. 13, 2010).

For much of June, I had been obsessed with the urban archaeology of the film Dream Neighborhood (1961): June 8, June 13, June 17, and June 18. The movie also implicates the Athenian Agora excavations in one scene, where the newly renovated Stoa of Attalos creates an important background. The Stoa of Attalos was restored by the Rockefeller Foundation between 1952 and 1956. It would have been under construction during the filming of Stella, but would have been freshly completed by Dream Neighborhood.

As I did with the funerary sequence earlier, I have sketched out a couple of scenes to help me in the framing of the filmic topography. The appearance of the Agora and the Stoa occurs when Stephania escapes the shanty town to meet her boyfriend and upper-middle-class youngsters for a spin to the suburbs. In the movie sequence she walks around Philopappou Hill and arrives at Apostolou Paulou Street, where two convertible cars wait for her. She hops on the convertible and the cars make a U-turn and spin around heading west. The figure in the middle of the street is another main character, Nekroforas carrying the lame child Themiakos, who's on his way to rob the villa of an old lady. You can see the scene here (cue 21:20 min.)

The characters enter a scene dominated by the Acropolis above. The image here signifies a modern Athens with automobile traffic, buses, a managed archaeological park and a beautiful setting. As the two convertibles spin around in dangerous speed, Nekroforas continues to walk towards the left. The camera zooms in and we can see more clearly his trench coat and the lame child. The camera also pans from West to East. The Acropolis disappears, while a long monument provides the visual focus. This is the Stoa of Attalos, restored by the Americans (cue 21:30 min). The long horizontal plain is mitigated by the peristyle rhythm of light and darkness. Above it rises the conic volume of Lykavittos Hill (prominent in yesterday's posting).

Nekroforas has his back turned to the camera, so he becomes a spectator of the urban archaeology. A few paths are visible through the fenced archaeological park, as well as some installations for the archaeologists along the pavement (I can't quite tell what these are yet). At this point, a bus enters the frame from the left, which is the bus that Nekroforas will take to the suburban villa. The camera continues to pan East (to the left) following the massing of the Stoa that concludes with a view of the Thesseion (Temple of Hephaestus).

In this scene, the ancient (Parthenon, Propylaea, Thesseion) and the modern (Stoa of Attalos restoration) are fused into one. The speed of the convertibles and the efficiency of public transportation overlap the modern construction of Athens that forms the dramatic foil to the shanty town around the corner. The Stoa of Attalos plays an important role in the dialectics of the urban story that is both temporal (ancient-modern), global (Greek-Anatolian-American) and socio-economic (dirty impoverished shanty town-clean monumental display)

REFERENCES

Leontis, Artemis. "Archaeology in the Neighborhood: Views of the Ancient Agora and Other Ruins from Outside the Gate," Journal of Modern Greek Studies 27:2, (October 2009), pp. 417-425.

Sakka, Niki. "The reconstruction of the Stoa of Attalos: Ideological and Political Aspects," Philhellenism, Philanthropy, or Political Convenience? American Archaeology in Greece," ASCSA, Athens, May 18, 2010.

Thomspon, Homer. The Stoa of Attalos II in Athens (Princeton, 1959)

Athens Silhouette 1956

A terrific sample of graphic design in the cultural column of the Greek evening newspaper Apogeumatini from 1956. Two 1930s fonts, "Evening" in black and "Hours" in white, float over a silhouette of the Athenian skyline. The city is drawn as an architectural section. The darkness suggests the sun's setting and pronouncement of evening outings. The afternoon hours are bracketed between siesta and nightfall. A second daily awakening is dramatized between the Acropolis on the left and Lycabettus Hill on the right, or between the Parthenon and the chapel of Saint George. The space between the two natural formations contains the cultural heart of Athens: Plaka, Monastiraki, Ermou, Omonia, the National Gardens, Vasilisis Sofias, Kolonaki.

The setting of the sun and the sweetness of urban darkness also marks a new social adventure, the watching of films. The newspaper graphic, in fact, is taken from a clipping that the Michael Cacoyannis Foundation has scanned and made available on line, where the director discusses the release of his movie debut. Windfall in Athens is one of the earliest movies to explore Athenian topography in its narrative, although the indoor scenes were actually filmed in a studio in Cairo. For the entire clipping, see "Ο κ. Μιχάλης Κακογιάννης ομιλεί δια τον Ελληνικόν κινηματογράφον," Apogeumatini (1956)

Naked Light Bulb

Micheal Cacoyannis died on Monday. He is one of Greece's best directors best known for his Zorba the Greek (1964), the film that has (for better or for worse) informed much of the mid-century notions of Greece. To learn more about Cacoyannis industrious life, see English obituaries in New York Times and Los Angeles Times.

I have blogged about the role that Athens plays in Cacoyannis movies and I continue to think about it. As a tribute to his work, I have started to watch all his films online. I also revisit an idea I'd like to build up into a serious study, Yannis Tsarouchis set designs for Stella. Vision, reflections, light-sources and the gaze across characters is exquisitely choreographed in the movie. Technical manipulations create an internal dialogue between the viewer and the medium of cinema that involves darkness, projection, illumination, emulsion and a game of shadows.

I think that the naked light bulb is an important character in Cacoyannis' film. Not only does it address the filmic process but it also speaks about electrification and modernity in postwar Greece. As I read the memorials on Cacoyannis and learn more about this life, I am struck by the theme of bright lights in Cacoyannis career as a correlate to the elevation of modern Athens as a character. The two themes come together in Cacoyannis pet project, namely the illumination of the Acropolis, which materialized in 2004. I find it amazing that the maestro of lights, the film director is responsible for the Acropolis light & sound show. Cacoyannis has set up a foundation, which continues his interest in the marriage of lights and monuments.

The bright lights of film enter another interesting biographical detail, Cacoyannis' discovery of Melina Merkouri as an actress. Merkouri had been rejected by all film studios. Stella was Merkouri's debut and Cacoyannis took some risk in casting her. Cacoyannis noted that he took a great risk for another reason, Merkouri's sensitivity to projected lights. I quote from an interview on the TV show SKAI Life (May 3, 2011), replayed on last night's SKAI news. Cacoyannis says (my translation) "Melina made her first film when everyone had rejected her as an actress. And I took a risk because the audition that Melina did was disappointing. Her large wonderful blue eyes could not stand the lights. She had a problem with lights." This is a wonderful footnote in light of the vivid illumination (both internal and external) in the film.

Cacoyannis neorealist naked light bulb has expired. But his legacy lives on and I encourage everyone to watch his early films online.

Κυριακάτικο ξύπνημα - Windfall in Athens (1954)
Στέλλα - Stella (1955)
Το κορίτσι με τα μαύρα - A Girl in Black (1956)
Το τελευταία ψέμα - A Matter of Dignity (1958)

Dream Neighborhood: News Coverage

The re-release of Dream Neighborhood has generated some interesting media coverage this last week. I find it amazing that I can sit in Philadelphia and experience the Greek response to the movie online. I'd like to share two postings with you. The first is what I would have liked to do, if I were in Athens right now, to walk through the Asyrmatou neighborhood and search for archaeological clues. Blogger Athensville has done this in, "Η Συνοικεία το Όνειρο Σήμερα" (July 12, 2011). Thanks to Athensville for transporting all the non-Athenians to the spaces of Asyrmatou 50 years later (photo left).

The second feature is a TV clipping from Greek television that chronicles the film's censorship, see here and here.

I began my ruminations on the shanty town of Asyrmatou by thinking about the houses of the Athenian Agora excavations. The film's debut took place at Radio City cinema and was attended by journalists, foreign dignitaries, and representatives of educational institutions. I am certain that member of the American School would have been present. This might also explain a review in the Herald Tribune, which reviewed the film positively. American archaeologists would have been acutely aware of the Asyrmatou neighborhood because they were excavating around the corner.

Dream Neighborhood: Kite

The architectural character of modern Athens is a phenomenon of the 1960s. Intense urbanization after the German occupation and the Civil War, lax regulation, cheap labor, and a national industry of concrete brought about the city of apartment buildings that we know and love today. In the absence of monetary investment (national banks, no interest rates), modern Athenians invested in real estate. Greek prosperity was reflected predominantly in the ownership of one or more apartments and summer homes. The flip-side of this upward mobility was an architectural demarcating of classes. Lack of ownership and dependence on rents signified poverty (the typical scenario outlined by Engels as early as 1872 in "The Housing Question.")

The 1961 film Dream Neighborhood that I've been thinking about this last week offers a clear expression of the conflicts inherent in modernization (the concrete house), poverty (shanty towns), and the movement into the middle class (in the case of the film unsuccessful). The film is dramatized in the neighborhood of Asyrmaton, Plaka. The film ends with a suicide and a funeral procession (discussed here). Resurrection occurs at the last minutes, when a boy flies a kite over the Acropolis. The kite itself was designed to look like a child's image of reality. It features a couple in love (signified by hearts) and images of daily life. The upper right portion of the kite represents the process of construction. Although undoubtedly drawn by the set designer Tasos Zographos, it reflects the iconic aspirations of class.

The kite shows a crane building a concrete apartment building. Workers and material stand on the scaffolding. The image is particularly powerful because the construction of the kite is visible as a shadow behind the paper. The triangles of the kite's construction intersect the triangles of the projected architectural construction.

Dream Neighborhood: Funerary Sequence

More notes on Athenian Film ArchaeologyThe closing sequence of the 1961 film Dream Neighborhood (Η συνοικία το όνειρο) is a powerful moment in Greek cinema (see here on YouTube). A funerary procession leads the viewer from the hills of Ano Petralona to the shanty town neighborhood that forms the film's sociological subject. The film deserves an entire essay for its architectural narrative. This post hopes to unpack some of the basic spatial maneuvers. The sketch plan above shows the three major architectural subjects in Athenian topography. The camera is placed somewhere on the hill and tracks the funerary party as they process along the hill (offering views to the Acropolis and the Philopapous Monument) and then down into the impoverished architecture where the characters live. I've made five quick sketches to trace the movement along this sequence, numbered 1-5 above.
1. A black mass moves along the hill, counterbalancing the white architecture of the Parthenon and the Propylaea. The black mass is made up of the funerary party, a group of 20-30 individuals wearing black. The funerary party represents the pains of poverty and the negativity of self-destruction. Although the characters in the movie are not certain of this, the viewer knows that the dead man committed suicide, falling from the very same rocks. A bush at the middle ground of the frame creates a point of reference. A shaded triangular area in the foreground contains physical detail. The funerary part will eventually enter that foreground area and we will start discerning the actors' identities. The Acropolis serves as a silent icon in the distance. The mass to its left, the Propylaea are both the gateways to the ancient monument, but also the intermediary gate for the camera's movement. In a filmic conceit, the mourners will enter from the Propylaea to the Acropolis.
2. The black mass of mourners moves left to right while the camera zooms closer. The mourning poor have now come to the middle-ground of the bush. As they grow larger, they engulf the Acropolis and make it disappear. I read this as a visual statement of erasure. In the filmic environment blackness is more than the opposite of white, but the absence of projection. It becomes a hole in the screen. The audience is engulfed in the meaningless darkness of the movie theater (or the open air theater). Blackness within the projected frame is an interior duplication of the exterior darkness of the filmic existential drama.3. The mourners continue to move left to right. The camera keeps them in the center of the frame by moving along with them. In the process, the Acropolis goes out of view and we focus to an area located northeast of the camera. The mourners have stopped riding on the landscape but are now engulfed by the limestone geology. We see the dead man's wife being supported by two elder females. Most importantly, we see the Monument of Philopappos as an architectural signifier in the distance. Only those familiar with Athenian topography get the funerary subtext of this scene. The Philopappos monument is a first-century CE mausoleum of a Hellenistic prince from Syria. Although it seems as a mere column in the distance, the monument has a circular facade that reminds us of the circular movement of both the camera and the funerary party. The monument depicts Philopappos as riding through the city on a chariot and could be read as a filmic moment of its own right in stone. The Syrian origin of Philopappos might also trigger contemporary connotations, the fact that the impoverished subjects of the movie were Asia Minor refugees from 1922. The residents of Asyrmatou were refugees from Antalya.
4. The camera has now focused on a triptych, the mourning widow physically propped up by two elder women. The widow stops over the precipice of the rock. She leans forward for a moment, suggesting that she would have flung herself from the hill if she were not supported by the mourners. This moment harks back to a similar shot where her husband alone committed suicide from the same spot. The religious references of this triad are pretty obvious.
5. Having overcome sorrow and death, the mourners descend down the precipitous hill along a set of steps half natural half man-made. The camera now shows new Athens in all its modern poverty. The mourners have traveled the history of old glorious Athens and have annihilated in their descent to a different place below. I read the juxtaposition of great monuments and impoverished city as more than just a dialectic statement or an ironic juxtaposition between the unreal myth of Athens and the real hell of its existence. Rather, the mourners have eaten up the ancient topography and have, thus, overcome it. Antiquity is a point of reference in the distance far less interesting than the haphazard modern village. The subject of the film, Asyrmatou neighborhood, was located below the hills of Philopappos and above Troon Street. See here for some views today.

The movie ends optimistically. Right as the mourners descend, a little boy ascends up the stairs with a kite, which he flies from the hill. The kite represents a resurrection. The final scene contains no ancient monuments. The architectural content of the resurrection is found within the kite itself which the camera stops to show in great detail. The kite is hand-drawn and shows a child's version of modern construction (subject to my next post)

Kypseli: Salon de Vortex

Kyspseli is one of the most densely populated neighborhoods in Athens and in the world. Developed in the 1920s, Patesion Boulevard stretched a new modern identity for the expansion of Athens north of the archaeological museum and the polytechnic university. During the "golden" age of the 1960s, Patesia and Kypseli defined a new metropolitanism. To use American terminology, these neighborhoods experienced "white flight" in the 1980s and 1990s. Today, they represent loss of control, economic degradation and the incoherence that ensues when the middle class flees to the (yet further) northern suburbs. The Kypseli of today is a new animal perhaps as interesting as its older moments of the 1920s garden city or the 1960s dense metropolis. See my earlier post on 1920s Patesion here. Like much of downtown Athens, Kypseli is a laboratory of globalization. Greeks are a visible elderly minority of landlords. Asian, African and Central European newcomers are calling the shots.

I was born in Kypseli. While visiting my sister in Kentucky yesterday, I looked at an old family album showing me as an infant in 1969 on our thin Kypseli balcony. Forty years later, I find myself owning that balcony, inherited from my father who bought it with his first savings. When my wife and I visited Kypseli this summer, we felt quite at home with the ethnic mix of the neighborhood. It feels a lot more like our hood in Philadelphia than any other place in Greece, although the human density, mechanical noise, and dog-shit still took us by surprise. We basically had to decide as a new family unit whether to keep the tiny apartment or sell it. We decided to keep it, despite the financial burden it will impose. And we find ourselves in Kypseli as our Greek base and a future place of reference for our two-year-old, we pay close attention to the neighborhood vibe. Who knows? A returning 1.5th-generation Greek-American, his American wife, and 2nd-generation Greek-American toddler might be part of the new global soup of Kypseli.

Thanks to the web, I can keep track of my new old neighborhood. A few months ago, the renovations of Mars Field Park were completed. This rare patch of park land was looking rather shabby in the last decade as urban resources ran out. See article by Demetris Regopoulos "Patesion Street starts believing in itself again," Kathimerini (Feb. 2, 2011). Other installations have sprung up.

Most interesting, a trio of Kypseli inhabitants are recognizing the new vitality of the neighborhood and through the medium of art seek to build a bridge between the Kipseli of now and the intellectual Kipseli of the mid-century. They are two artists and a writer, Giannis Isidorou, Giannis Gregoriadou and Katerina Eliopoulou, founders of the art space SALON DE VORTEX on Ithakis 24 (and I. Drosopoulou). Salon de Vortex's mission statement includes engaging the neighborhood's global present. Salon de Vortex makes me particularly excited because it happens to be housed in the office of Kostas Kitsikis, one of Greece's premier modernists. Since I haven't yet visited the gallery, I don't have much to report on first hand. Salon de Vortex founder Isidorou published an opinion piece in Kathimerini that intrigued me. I quote the whole editorial here. It is entitled "Why We Chose Kypseli"

Giannis Isidorou, "Γιατί προτιμήσαμε την Κυψέλη" Kathimerini (Feb. 5, 2011)

"Tο project space salon de vortex είναι ένας νέος αυτοδιαχειριζόμενος χώρος στην Κυψέλη, που σκοπεύει στην παρουσίαση και ανάδειξη συλλογικοτήτων και συνεργασιών από τον χώρο των εικαστικών, της ποίησης και του κοινωνικοπολιτικού στοχασμού, με επίκεντρο την αναπτυσσόμενη ανεξάρτητη σκηνή στην Ελλάδα του 21ου αιώνα. Εγκαινίασε τη λειτουργία του με την κοινή μας έκθεση με τον Γιάννη Γρηγοριάδη και τίτλο «Μοφερισμός μια πρώτη αποτίμηση», στις 20 Ιανουαρίου του 2011 (διάρκεια έως 18 Φεβρουαρίου).

Το «παγκοσμιοποιημένο σκηνικό» και οι τομές της καθημερινής ζωής είναι τα στοιχεία που χαρακτηρίζουν την περιοχή της Κυψέλης. Η πυκνή κατοίκηση, η διάσπαρτη αγορά, οι πολυκατοικίες με την πλούσια τυπολογία, τα ρετιρέ και τα θυρωρεία, η ορθολογική πολεοδομία μαζί με τα κτίρια Μπαουχάουζ και τα ανακαινισμένα νεοκλασικά, η ήπια χρήση των χώρων διασκέδασης και η διατήρηση του δημόσιου χώρου, ορίζουν τη γειτονιά ως αναφορά της καθημερινότητας και ως κυρίαρχη χωρική κλίμακα. Ταυτόχρονα, η ταξική και ηλικιακή διαστρωμάτωση, οι δραστήριες και σε μεγάλο βαθμό αφομοιωμένες αλλοδαπές κοινότητες, οι πολυσύχναστες πλατείες, τα ποικίλα επιτηδεύματα, δημιουργούν μιαν πολυεπίπεδη συνύπαρξη και ένα φορτίο εντάσεων, που με τη σειρά του διαμορφώνει το κατεξοχήν αστικό πεδίο δράσης της τέχνης. Στην Κυψέλη, όπου έζησαν πολλοί ποιητές (Ελύτης, Σαχτούρης, Εγγονόπουλος, Γκάτσος, Δημουλά), λειτουργούν και άλλοι χώροι τέχνης, στεγάζονται εργαστήρια καλλιτεχνών, καθώς και τα ιστορικά θέατρα και πολλοί κινηματογράφοι.

Μαζί με τα πρακτικά πλεονεκτήματα της περιοχής, την εγγύτητα με το κέντρο της πόλης, η Κυψέλη φαίνεται να κερδίζει μια νέα αίγλη, μετά και διά μέσου της παρακμής των δύο δεκαετιών που έκλεισαν τον 20ό αιώνα. Βιώνοντας και ερμηνεύοντας σε βάθος χρόνου τα παραπάνω, θεωρήσαμε ότι η λειτουργία ενός ανεξάρτητου χώρου για την προβολή της ελληνικής εικαστικής σκηνής, της ποίησης και του κοινωνικοπολιτικού στοχασμού, θα μπορούσε να ενταχθεί και να συμβάλει δημιουργικά στον χαρακτήρα της περιοχής."

Good luck guys!!! From a distant new neighbor. Anything I can do from the U.S.?

Rock in Athens 85'

On July 26-27, 1985, the ancient stadium of Athens hosted an interesting happening organized by the newly formed General Secretariat of Youth (Γενική Γραμματεία Νέας Γενιάς) and the French Ministry of Culture. Rock in Athens 85' was a two day New Wave rock festival, which was quite cutting edge for its time. Although major bands like the Rolling Stones had performed in the ancient stadium before (Apr. 17 1967), Rock in Athens was the first rock festival to ever take place in Greece. A New Wave festival at Kalimarmaro in 1985? How radical is that? But it makes little sense considering the lack of a following for New Wave in Greece at this time. A Heavy Metal festival would make sense, rising naturally from Greece's Hard Rock tradition. I can't be certain about my observations, since I wasn't present, but as a committed follower of New Wave, I was struck by the shortage of punks in the summers that I would visit Greece. My cousins, who followed music closely, would confirm these observations. I was a New Wave Greek-American looking for a scene in Greece. Sure, there was the punk band Panx Romana from 1977, singing "You Greeks! you are worms, and the Acropolis doesn't belong to you/Έλληνα είσαι σκουλίκι και η Ακρόπολη δε σου ανοίκει." And there were also anarchists squatting in Athens (less institutionalized and violent as they are today). And there was the store REMEMBER 77, on Adrianou 77 in Plaka (founded 1978), where I bought my first Creepers in 1991.

What makes Rock in Athens 85' peculiar is its sponsors. The festival was conceived by the Greek and French Ministries of Culture. It was a state event televised on national TV and hence totally different from festivals like Woodstock, Live Aid, Coachella, or the extremely successful Rockwave in Athens. Melina Merkouri, then Minister of Culture, was present. Priceless footage shows the grand Merkouri meeting the wild Nina Hagen (and her clean-cut mother) backstage. The General Secretariat of Youth was formed in 1982, soon after Andreas Papandreou's Socialist government won elections and tried to liberalize cultural policy that had been dominated by the conservative right and its family-tradition-religion priorities. Quoting the current website, the Secretariat's task was (and still is) "shaping, monitoring and coordinating the government policy for youth and its connection with society and social entities. In this way, Greece was harmonised with the european and international practice of high-level, self-sustained and integral government services aiming to public youth policies." We must also remember that, only two weeks earlier in the summer of 1985, Live Aid took place in London and Philadelphia. But this was a private venture, organized for famine relief in Ethiopia by Bob Geldof. Live Aid was the first concert to be televised in a global scale through satellite. As the interview with Boy George reveals, Culture Club did have a fan base already in Greece. But it seems that there was not enough of a fan base for each of the bands to appear individually. The festival garnered each group's small fan base into a guaranteed (and cheap) event. We must also consider that Rock in Athens 85' was not exclusively targeted to Greeks. Hoards of vacationing European and American youth attended. After all, Greeks flee Athens for the countryside in July and August.

Whatever the motivations of the concert may have been, it seems to have taken a great risk. As a result it did begin shaping cultural attitudes at least in so far as New Wave's popularity boomed. Nevertheless, the conflict between audience and performers, the awkwardness of the ancient stadium, the July heat are all evident in the videos. The performers included Culture Club, Depeche Mode, Stranglers, Nina Hagen, the Cure, Talk Talk, Telephone and a surprise guest star, the Clash (or at least the remnants of the Clash--Mick Jones and Nicky Headon had already left, and the Clash disbanded in 1986). According to eye-witness accounts, fights broke out between the police and fans outside the stadium. Italian tourists were somehow involved.

If anyone wants to watch the televised festival (ERT2), you can find it almost in its entirety (minus the Clash performance) on Youtube. Extremely interesting are the backstage interviews below. To see the Melina-Nina encounter, go to Part 3. In the spirit of Punk Archaeology, Youtube allows me to investigate an event that took place in the ancient Panathenaic stadium that was reconstructed for the first Olympics of 1896. The footage is source material for an ephemeral moment. The videos not only transport us to a different era of Greek cultural policy, but they offer evidence for an almost surreal confrontation between a primarily Anglo-American (and German) youth movement and a resisting Mediterranean. Just watch the accumulation of sweat on Boy George's face as the night progresses. Although I haven't studied the videos in great length, they also reveal tensions in a cultural dialogue. Note for example homosexual tensions between Boy George and the audience. I hope that the readers of this posting interested in the history of the Greek 1980s will offer closer reading and insights.

Interviews Part I



Interviews Part II



Interviews Part III




For those that want to watch the concert in its entirety, the following links will direct you to individual band performances:

July 26:
Telephone 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Culture Club 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

July 27:
The Stranglers 11, 12, 13, 14, 15
Talk Talk 15, 16, 17, 18
The Cure 18, 19, 20, 21