MetaTOC stay on top of your field, easily

Planning the Public Functions of Nineteenth-Century Athens: Setting the Priorities between Idealism and Practical Needs

Journal of Urban History

Published online on

Abstract

When the capital of the newly founded Greek State was transferred to Athens in 1834, the former provincial city of the Ottoman Empire had no buildings suitable to house a European capital. Yet, providing it with them proved to be far more complicated than expected, because of the question which buildings should be given priority: those housing the most urgent practical needs of a modern European State, or those underlining the connection of modern Greece to the cultural supremacy of the ancient Greek world? That question led to a continuous wavering between each option, constant changes of plans, and many nonpractical decisions that delayed greatly the organization of Athens as a European capital in functional terms. The originality of the article lies in its relying mainly on unpublished archival sources that throw new light on the creation of modern Athens.