i was windering why dosent athens have many highrises? is there hight restrictions maybe because of old helliniko that have now been removed? athens would look good with a few highrises. i notice the same thing in Rome.

Hello George
Your question stands for many people .
One answer that i know is that there should be no building taller than the hight of Acropolis (at least in a distance of some Km from the acropolis hill).
The only exception is the athens tower built by the engineer Aristarchos Economou during the military junta in 1972.
I have the feeling that also in rome (with athens the two oldest cities in europe) there is a restriction in high rise building because of the historic center.

Well ofcourse no highrises should be anywhere near the Acropolis.


But in places such as Maroussi, and others, the answer is mainly political. I know gm can answer your question very well. (he is very passionate on this subject)

Unfortunately, the answer is not that simple, and certainly does not have to do with the fact that we cannot build them since both money and expertise exist as proven by the constructions that took place for the last Olympics. I believe that the reason is a bit of everything. First, it has to do with the fact that just because the first (or better: most) of the Athenian highrises were built during the time of the military junda (which in our country is considered to be amongst the darkest periods of its modern history), part of the leftist subsequent ideological and political authorities expressing the dominant ideologies of their times probably considered tall buildings as "Capitalistic icons" having nothing to do with the then models of "mild development", according to "human scales" etc etc etc. The point is that from 1978, the (then) new regional plan of Athens has closed all the laws or even the legal loopholes which would allow construction of more than 8-storey buildings in Athens. In addition, the schools of architecture in Greece and other major cities have taught generations of students to hate what they called "glamour architecture" so, I reckon that even today, some professors of the "old guard" of the Schools of Architecture in Greece may consider it a sacrilege that their students may be asking about why tall buildings are not being built (although chances are that the new generations of students , especially after the Calatravian works, may be more interested in this, despite the "terror" imposed by their backward teachers).


This presented some good and some bad sides. The good side is that our city avoided the construction of buildings like the Apollo Tower (http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=110578) or the Residential Towers in Aghios Nikolaos Acharnon (http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/cx/?id=103698) which means that the model of the five -storey residential towers would have been reproduced multiple times vertically and in this case, we could be talking about a huge disaster since at least, Athens nowadays IS a city with a view. In this sense, looks like the worse by-product of vertical expansion of a city was avoided.

The bad thing however is, at least for those that like tall buildings, that Athens has been deprived of a "real" skyline, although the height of the Acropolis (some 150m or 500feet approx is anything but prohibitive for the construction of up to 40 or so storey buildings which in my book fall well into the category of "skyscrapers". As a result, although many areas of Athens present an image which presents what I might call a "cohesively weaved web of modernity" where you can drive or walk and see many modern buildings or complexes, still, height seems to be a taboo issue both for the state authorities as well as the architecture schools.

I believe that the situation might change but I wouldn't expect anything taller that 10 storeys to begin construction earlier than 2006 or 2007, maybe later. The existing laws are absurdly tight to be even "bent" and only when abolished soemthing like that may happen...

How bout Thessaloniki?

This is a sad story!

A skyline would have added a lot of things to Athens. I also think it's a need for Athens, I guess there is not much space left in the city.

Istanbul had it's skyline in 10 -15 years time, you start to built higrises at 2007 and we can see a cluster at 2017? Hopefully....

That's a good question too. The point is that Athens and the so-called "polykatoikia" (residential block) created a model that is difficult to be overcome all at once. In fact, even in Patra (the third Greek city with some 200,000+ inhabitants) you can build some 20-storey buildings (they don't look that monstrous for God's sake), that's not a problem. The point is that in order for Greece to build tall, in brief, the following factots need to be considered:

-"Training" of the neighbouring communities as to their aesthetics about the notion that tall=ugly and short=beautiful and elimination of related fears which cuase their negative attitudes
-Conduct of proper feasibility studies as to the financial viability of such projects, based on the pragmatic real estate market conditions. I reckon that Hellenes wouldn't like to go and live in highrises, although, for a single and sexually active individual a penthouse in a residential tower where you can offer your love interest a classy meal with the candlelights under a full moon and you know the package -on your balcony- on the 15th floor might have been romantic. I doubt that an 80 sq metre apartment at such height is appropriate for raising kids (however, you never know right? it also depends on the overal, amenities that such a complex offers)

-Use of highrises for business offices: This is the most likely situation that may happen in my view. The point is that one should be given a permit to build well above the 10th floor and the rest will follow...

@ Istanbullu:

From what I saw in Istanblue and also, from what Asim told me, already there were some highrises in Istanblue since the 1960's although my understanding is that the restrictions in there were very strict too.

Istanbul had never a problem to build 15-storey residential blocks, similar to the 5-storey ones in Athens. What IS significant and makes Isblue notable in this department is that since the beginning of the 90's the city witnessed a wave of a booming construction in office towers which constitute the "icons" of a modern financial centre. I don't expect that Athens will ever build a tower above 150m, however, a similar boom, albeit in a smaller scale is probable some time in the future provided that the overall economy will be supportive to it...

There were very few high rises in Istanbul at 60's and i'm sure that the tallest building of Istanbul was shorter than the tallest building of Athens.

The first real skyscraper our city see was the Sabanci Towers(which was built about 15 years ago), the Yapi Kredi buildings which is located at the same area were built before Sabanci Towers but they were hardly a skyscraper but plazas.

Booming wave of construction offices go on here, yesterday I've read an article about Maslak cluster. It said %95 of the office buildings are occupied there and a several more office towers are still in construction and planned.