Five Kypseli architectural gems granted listed status
The Environment Ministry has granted listed status to five lovely examples of eclectic residential architecture from the 1920s clustered in close proximity on a small street in the heavily populated and apartment block-packed central Athens district of Kypseli.
Irini Gratsia, an archeologist and coordinator at the Monumenta organization, which is dedicated to salvaging Athens’ modern architectural legacy, hailed renewed efforts by the ministry’s Listed Monuments Department to increase the number of protected buildings, after several years of lackluster interest.
But she also went on to lament that the state is not doing more to help the owners of such buildings from having to sell them because of the high cost of maintenance.
Describing the Porou Street survivors of the Greek capital’s shoddy urbanization on Porou Street as “gems of eclecticism,” Gratsia explains that buildings from this period are the most at risk from demolition right now because once they turn 100 they automatically enjoy a greater level of protection.
The five buildings in question are located at numbers 8, 10, 12, 17 and 19 Porou Street. Interestingly, the decision to protect them from demolition also includes a special provision for a plot at 15 Porou where a similarly valuable building was demolished in 2022; it states that anything built in its place must respect the character and look of the other five edifices.
