Current state of building stock in the refugee settlements of the Central and Southern Sector of Athens

The Athens Central and Southern Sector comprises a multitude of refugee areas of varying scale, with buildings following different architectural standards. This investigation focuses on the current state of the building stock, outlining the quality of maintenance, land values and existing uses, while giving information on how these areas were originally designed. A comparative assessment of the evolution of different architectural options and their footprint in today’s city is carried out. The aim of the paper is to re-emphasize the issue of the refugee housing complexes, highlighting the variety of architectural choices and the multitude of scattered neighborhoods, mapping critical enclaves that face significant decay and abandonment.

The entry includes a bibliographic review, archival material study and field research, which took place between October and December 2023. The field research was carried out in the context of the Study Abroad Program, College Year in Athens, and the course “Social Housing and Social Exclusion. International Experience and the case of Athens”, lecturer E. Toussi with the participation of the following Undergraduate students: Cavanaugh Anissa (University of Notre Dame), Conte Isabella Kathleen – (Union College), Erickson Alyssa (University of Puget Sound), Hill Jordan Elizabeth (University of Notre Dame), Hochman Anna Gabrielle (University of Pennsylvania), Iannios Mia (The George Washington University), McCracken Fiona Rory (Furman University), Schwab Joseph (University of Puget Sound) and Skylar Yarter (Williams College).

Introduction

The city of Athens has a long history of about 3,400 years, making it both the capital and the largest city in Greece. Its formation and evolution are associated with demographic flows, historical conjunctures and socio-political transformations, shaping a socio-spatial palimpsest (Παπαευαγγέλου-Γκενάκου, 2023:12). Since 1830-1840, population inflows of different cultural origins, intensified after the end of the Balkan wars has been documented (Γκιζελή, 1984:88). However, the most important demographic flow is undoubtedly the refugee settlement of 1922, which was at its time the largest population relocation in the world (The National Geographic Magazine, 1925). In the international academic discourse, the study of refugee populations has been inaugurated as a separate scientific field since 1982 [1]. being characterized by its interdisciplinary nature. As scholars argue, refugee facilities have functioned, internationally, as an ideal field of experimentation, contributing to the implementation of social policy programs (Chimni, 2009).

The analysis of the contemporary urban fabric of Athens reveals significant socio-spatial influences from the refugee settlement of 1922, making this issue important for the interpretation of the Greek urban scenery (Τούση, 2014:12). Refugee housing, urban planning and street naming are just some of the elements of tangible heritage that facilitate the preservation of urban collective memory. In many cases, the severe damages on the refugee housing stock, in the wake of their housing rehabilitation, reminds us, that the study of refugee neighborhoods is not something that concerns the city of yesterday. It’s definitely something that concerns the city of today.

In view of this thesis, this article attempts to provide systematic information about the refugee settlements of the Central and South Athens Sector (figure 1), through a study of relevant literature, archival material and extensive field work, which includes field observation, building blueprints and semi-structured interviews with residents. This research attempts to connect the initial design to the current situation of the former refugee neighborhoods and draw conclusions on the effectiveness of the types of the refugee housing rehabilitation. Moreover, demolished refugee settlements in the area of study have been documented as an effort to preserve collective memory. This study paves the way for future research in the area, in terms of a micro-geographical approach, facilitating the study of specificities of time and place.

Figure 1: Administrative boundaries of the Central and Southern Sectors of Athens, marking in red the municipalities where Asia Minor refugees settled

Source: https://el.wikipedia.org and edition by the authors

The Initial Planning Process

After the Asia Minor Catastrophe of 1922, more than 1,200,000 refugees [2] found shelter in Greece, overturning existing spatial and social equilibria (Χίρσον, 2004:11). In 1923, the Treaty of Lausanne imposed the mandatory exchange of Greek and Turkish populations, the first in history (Χιρσον, 2004:11), shaping the general framework of resettlement (Clark, 2009:127). The Article 142 provided for mandatory population exchange, excluding the Greeks of Constantinople, Imbros, and Tenedos, as well as the Muslims of Western Thrace. The convention specified the persons to be exchanged, their nationality and their properties (Ελληνική Στατιστική Αρχή, 2022:12). Under the pressure of historical circumstances, many regions of the country associated their development with the refugee rehabilitation, in urban and rural areas (Βεϊνόγλου Μ και Φ., 1997:21).

In the field of urban rehabilitation, emphasis was placed on securing affordable housing (Ανδριώτης, 2020:144). Concerning the refugee housing rehabilitation, public bodies and organizations such as the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Refugee Fund (HCR), the Refugee Rehabilitation Commission (RRC) and the National Bank of Greece (NBG) were employed. The rehabilitation of refugees also involved private organizations as well as foreign charitable organizations such as the American and Swedish Red Cross, American Near East Relief and others (Τζεδόπουλος, 2007:74). In the wider area of the agglomeration Athens-Piraeus, 12 large and 34 small refugee settlements (Σαρηγάννης, 2000:105), were created, which until today, reflect their refugee past. In particular, in the area of today’s Central and Southern Athens Sector (figure 1) a number of different types of permanent refugee facilities had been recorded until 1959 (figures 1 & 2).

Figure 2: Permanent Refugee Settlements of the Capital Region, Ministry of Welfare, 1959

Source: The coding of the settlements is based on archival material from a relevant table by the Department of Social Welfare, Attica Region. Study of archival material, coding, and table design by E. Tousi, 2024

Figure 3: Cooperatives, Permanent Refugee Settlements of the Former Capital Region, Ministry of Welfare, 1959

Source: The coding of the settlements is based on archival material from a relevant table by the Department of Social Welfare, Attica Region. Study of archival material, coding, and table design by E. Tousi, 2024.

During the interwar period the first attempts to provide permanent housing to refugees had been recorded. Simultaneously, the design of the capital’s garden-suburbs had also been evolving. The Athenian garden-suburbs employed European examples as prototypes. Given this, the principles of the garden city movement influenced considerably the development of some of the urban refugee settlements of the interwar period (Κοσμάκη, 1991:247). In particular, two different planning approaches have been observed. On the one hand, many refugee settlements followed a rectangular grid, through repetition of typical forms of city blocks. In these cases, there is absence of larger scale outdoor spaces and a lack of a clearly defined settlement center. Public spaces had been limited to the inner courtyards of the city blocks and to pedestrian alleys (Κοσμάκη, 1991:288 και Ανδριώτης, 2020:36). On the other hand, the refugee garden-suburbs (N.Smyrna, Ymittos, N.Philadelphia, Elliniko) follow the basic design principles of the garden city movement, with primary and secondary, larger-scale outdoor spaces, where the center of the settlement is distinguished and well-defined (Figure 4). In both cases, the refugee settlements had not been planned as a direct continuation of the existing urban fabric (Κοσμάκη, 1991:258). In some cases, the availability of land as well as the ease of expropriation and completion of the project, played a key role in decision making (Ανδριώτης, 2020:236). Relevant sources point out that, by way of derogation from Article 19 of the Greek Constitution, land has been expropriated without any prior advance payment (Βασιλειάδης, 1944:71). It should be noted, though, that the distance (1-4 km) of the refugee settlements from the existing urban centers was a conscious choice, as a form of deliberate social and geographical exclusion (Λεοντίδου, 2017).

Figure 4: Refugee garden suburbs, based on the classification by Kosmaki (1991)

Source: Cartographic material from the Department of Social Welfare, Attica Region. Study of archival material, information synthesis, and table design by E. Tousi, 2024

Both the Refugee Relief Fund (1923-1925) and the Refugee Rehabilitation Commission (UNHCR) (1925-1930) built a significant number of refugee houses in the area of Athens (Ρούσση, 2011:148). The latest report of the Refugee Rehabilitation Commission, states that 16,345 families had been housed in the area of Athens-Piraeus and still remained 22,492 facilities to accommodate (Κοσμάκη, 1991:329). According to sources, during the period 1924-1930 a total of 15,000 refugee residences were built in the area of Athens-Piraeus (Ίδρυμα της Βουλής των Ελλήνων, 2006:52-53). After the year 1930, the Ministry of Welfare built refugee apartment complexes at Alexandras Avenue (228 apartments), at Stegi Patridos (120 apartments) and at Dourgouti (237 apartments) (Ρούσση, 2011:148).

After the interwar period, the refugee housing rehabilitation continued until the 1980s (figure 5). After World War II, relevant legislation was amended and supplemented. Moreover, a new census of households residing in slums was conducted and the Special Department for Housing Shacks was established at the Ministry of Social Welfare (Ανδριώτης, 2020:250). The signing of the “Code of Rehabilitation for Urban Refugees“, enacted on 23.5.1960, formed the framework of refugee rehabilitation in the post-war era. Article 1 describes the concept of ‘urban rehabilitation’ [3], while Article 7 mentions the demolition of shacks. These policies were associated with efforts to alter the social fabric of the refugee neighborhoods [4]. As stated by Menelaos Charalambidis (Χαραλαμπίδης, 2024:392) the settlements of the Asia Minor refugees, contributed to the development of the Resistance in the Athens region after WWII.  Taking into account all the previously mentioned and with the view to contribute to the preservation of collective memory, this paper documents briefly the demolished refugee settlements, after studying archival material from the General Archives of the State and the Department of Social Welfare. These settlements were demolished [5], in various periods, independently or in successive phases, and are being presented in figure 6. Most of these accommodations consisted of a single-room-residence and a small kitchen (Τσίχλα-Μαρκοπούλου, 1996:35).

Figure 5: Timeline of refugee settlements

Source: Department of Social Welfare, Attica Region. Study of archival material, information synthesis, and table design by E. Tousi, 2024

Table 6: Demolished refugee facilities in central and southern Athens sector, authors’ work , Social Welfare Services Attica and related literature listed in the table.

Source: Archival material from a relevant table by the Department of Social Welfare, Attica Region. Study of archival material, coding, and table design by E. Tousi, 2024.

Delving into the architectural types of the urban refugee settlements in the central and southern sectors of Athens

Covering a wide range of architectural and urban planning options, urban refugee settlements follow a variety of standards. The prevalent options revolve around the garden city movement, the Viennese superblocks (e.g. Kesariani), the German Zeilenbau (e.g. Alexandra) and typical forms of Hippodamian grid. However, the scale is different, with the Greek examples being distinctly smaller, compared to the corresponding European ones (Figure 7). There is also the unique case of the apartment building of Asyrmatos (1967, see Figure 5), which uses strategies such as “streets in the sky” [6] to promote social interaction among its tenants, following similar examples from the international experience (Feliz-Ricoy, 2017:526 και Borges et.al, 2019:2). These facilities range from the scale of a few city blocks (e.g. Stegi Patridos) up to the scale of a municipality (e.g. Kesariani) and are scattered within the area of today’s Central and Southern Athens Sector. Focusing on the architectural morphology, the buildings of the first period derive elements from vernacular architecture, with references to the architecture of the Ottoman period, being either ground-floor or single-floor, including one to four housing units (Figure 7), The most recent examples follow the principles of Modernism (Figures 8 & 9). Construction materials also vary: from load-bearing masonry and combination of reinforced-concrete slabs and masonry walls to structural bodies entirely from reinforced concrete. The common feature of all housing types is the small area of each apartment, with the most recent examples providing larger spaces within the house.