Athens and military architecture

This paper describes the relation between military areas and the form of the current city of Athens, as it derives from the main urban plans and their elements during the nineteenth century and the purpose is to show how the settlement of military areas has influenced the construction of the modern city. In addition, nowadays all these buildings have been left to stand derelict and have become a dual challenge for the city: on the one hand, to manage to reuse this important architectural heritage and on the other to succeed in reconnecting these projects with the city. Through a certain number of plans and an urban scale analysis, the objective is to study the projects of these military areas, focusing on the design, the typology and their settlement principles. In other words, the aim is to analyse them so as to understand the process of their construction and their influence on the evolution of the modern city of Athens. What emerges from this analysis is the fact that the early projects of the barracks during the nineteenth century are closely related to the city plans, the urban elements and the history of the city. Moreover, it’s important to underline that even in those cases the military buildings have been demolished, many urban voids have been created that have offered new opportunities for the growth and the expansion of the city.