[Un]finished: atlas of Athens' incomplete buildings : a story of hidden antimonuments

Abstract

"With this work in the form of a book, Maria Lalou & Skafte Aymo-Boot present the phenomenon of a particular pending architecture mutely present all over Athens. The concrete skeletons of polykatoikia – multi-story apartment buildings – are emblematic of the development of modern Greece throughout the second half of the twentieth century. The book deals with the politics of urban space by treating the unfinished buildings as study objects and tracing their individual histories. Through the words of current owners and by means of photographs, archival documents and found artefacts, a different chronicle of the development of modern Arthens is taking shape. Essays by Brooke Holmes, Platon Issaias and Elpida Karaba critically touch upon the phenomenon from different perspectives. Moving in scale from a tactile portrait of one specific concrete structure to a complete building index, the atlas introduces a method for extracting forgotten memories and hidden structures, suggesting an alternative reading of the city"-- Provided by publisher.