The effort of 25 years to create an ambitious cultural center has produced no more than a very large hole at the corner of Vassileos Konstantinou and Ploutarchou, a site that today only attracts unemployed archaeologists and inquisitive dogs. A few blocks away the even larger concrete skeleton of the Hall of the Friends of Music has produced no sound in the last five years but the cooing of pigeons.
If the prospect of making Athens into a glittering cultural metropolis seems dim at present, a return to a more intimate and humane way of life is looking brighter. On November 23, forty kentra in Plaka – discotheques, night clubs, boites, etc., with such suggestive names as ‘Any Time’, ‘Midnight and After’, ‘New Mecca’ and ‘Mad Club’ – forever shut their doors in compliance with the terms set down by Presidential Decree 561/82 signed just one year earlier.
It’s taken four Presidential De-crees to accomplish it, but Greece has put teeth into a zoning law for the first time since the medieval and Turkish accretions were swept off the Acropolis 150 years ago. The fact will surprise no one familiar with this do-it-yourself, where-ever-you-like country.
To go back a bit, P.D. 522/80 squelched the megalomaniacal idea of cutting a ring road around the Acropolis and dictated as well that streets in Plaka could not be altered in any way. P.D. 616/80 ordered the removal of advertisements, signs and neon lights which had given the area a Polynesian-Las Vegas style felt to be out of keeping with ‘the neighborhood of the gods’. On its heels came P.D. 617/80 which dictated what buildings or groups of buildings must be preserved, detailing how they should be restored inside and out, in lights of today’s needs. Practically, it offered attractive loans to real estate owners. Finally, P.D. 561/82, in a mood of moral uplift, required an elevation in the quality of life: toning down the decibel count of megaphones and eliminating the steamier fleshpots.
As a paradigm for the future of Greece, the rejuvenation of Plaka in old age is of the greatest importance. The unique Venetian quarter of Hania, Crete, for instance, is currently passing through the degenerate phases that almost destroyed Plaka, an example which can be multiplied many times over. This is no time to decentralize ugliness.
As for Athens itself, the rehabilitation of Plaka is a vital contribution. What are fine galleries, elaborate theaters, elegant productions of opera and ballet, if a city’s heart is out of joint? But if the heart of a city is brought back to health, good circulation will naturally follow, and a new creativity, too, that relies not on grand architecture but on the human scale.
In the temporary absence of gods, people are moving back into Plaka.
Teriade
Art publisher, critic and collector, Stratis Eleftheriadis, who, as Teriade,’ became an international figure in the world of early 20th century art, died in Paris at 86 on October 23.
Son of a small soap manufacturer from the village of Vareia, Mytilene, he left in 1915 to study law in Paris. His interests were soon diverted, however, to the dynamic world of contemporary art. As co-publisher of the influential journal Cahiers d’Art, he came into close and friendly contact with leading artists. From these encounters issued those limited editions of original works of Matisse, Picasso, Braque, Giacometti and others, which are outstanding examples of 20th century publishing and works of art in themselves.
Teriade is probably best known here for discovering the talents of the folk painter, Theofilos, a leading figure in 20th century Greek art, whose works are found in many leading museums, including the Louvre. In recent years, Teriade himself has created two museums and presented them to his homeland. One contains his unique art publications and the other his private collection of Theofilos. Both are attached to the modest house in Mytilene where he was born.
