Project title:
Expressions of fear of the former Ministry
of Border and Coast Protection (MBCP)
Research and illustrations: Steffen Seidel
Photographs: Ioannis Savvidis
The MBCP of the People's Republic of Greece was the fear and horror
of all fishermen. A as good as possible controlled 3 miles deep exclusion zone allowed the maximal distance
of any floating object from the coast lines (on islands only strict controlled persons could use boats).
Officially the government proclaimed this law to protect all the fishermen and individuals from the enemies of NATO they share the Aegean and Ionian Sea with: The Federation of Cyprus and Crete, the Republic of Turkey and the Italian Republic.
Of course this absurd and strict measure was created only to prevent the VRG from mass exodus. In the late fifties of the last century nearly one million people escaped from the Communistic country and only the intervention of the Soviet Marine stopped this exodus via hardcore intervention. Hundreds of boat people were killed that spring of 1958. Two years later the MBCP was founded and one of it's first move was to prohibit boat ownership!
The MBCP authority's target was to demoralize the Greeks to like what they ever did: the sea! They tried to make it being something dangerous and evil.
The first temporary seat of the MBCP was near the Piraeus port. Since 1983 it moved to the very end of the Lenin Ave. at the shore of Phaleron Bay. It wasn't by chance for this location to bee chosen. The new complex replaces the sea as an optical spot. Instead of reaching the sea by the shortest and straightest way since 1901 from central Athens you directly "fall in the arms" of the MBCP!
This recapitulation of the younger architecture and urban planning history of the socialistic Hellas trough the most absurd undertaking a government ever tried to established, will now take part inside the building of the former Ministry of Border and Coast Protection. Now, in it's facilities a new ministry moved in: This of the National Reunification which commissioned this project.
Panel 1 of this architectural and historical inspection.
Inkjet print on paper. Dimensions of each panel:70 x 100 cm
Detail of panel 1. Extract of the architectural top view of the complex. You can see the Ministry's sections
and directorates.
Extract of panel 2. erspective drawing with the main building. Here you can see clearly the intensions to lead the Leniv Ave. directly in the outer yard of the Ministry.
Extract of panel 1. This 80eies picture shows parts of the the guarded wall which separates the sea from the land at Vouliagmeni-Athens walls like this runs along many thousands of Kilometers at the shoreline in Greece
Extract of panel 1. This picture (taken in 1977) shows parts of the the guarded wall which separates the sea from the coastline at Moschato-Athens.
Presentation of both panels at the Athens Biennial