TEPA

Project title:

Stages of adaptation of the power structures

in the urban environment

Study and illustration: Konstantia Manthou and Michalis Kyriazis

Photographs and drawings: Ioannis Savvidis

This study examines the social and political transformations

of the area of the Tzaneri Village near Athens.

This area was and still is extremely exposed to radical ideological loaded changes.

Since 1929 Tzaneri, a former wine and fruit producing area was involved with Athens, administratively as well as in urban planning.

Tzaneri became famous with it's airfield, build by the Pelecistic Regime. In the same time of the founding of the airfield developers expand the city northwards reaching the village. The called this new city extention Nea Ilissia.

This new airfield - one of the best in Europe- became as expected an ideological and symbolical charge: obsession of archaeology and national superiority of the Greeks.

The terminal building was the crowning final of the new city axis (the former Ikaron Ave. and now Konstantin Tavoularis Ave.) ending at Athens' largest square called Aerodromiou sq.

Inside the airport ground large industrial facilities produced war planes (Aris II fighter and the Daedalus bomber) which mainly were used in the campaign against Turkey in WW2. It was then, when Marini was dreaming his "Imperium of the Airs" myth, shared by many enthusiastic Greeks. After the fall of Pelecism and the capitulation in WW2  the Tzaneri airfield became a civil airport loosing largely his mythological and sybolic values.

In 1988 a new International Airport near Eleusis opened and Tzaneri where used only for governmental needs since then.

Eleven years later, in 2001 the first few firms and institutions of the ambitious Technological and Scientific Park of Athens (TEPA) opened their facilities there.

The Tzaneri area once more was at the frontline of innovations. Once more it's ideological expression where seen at the architectural and planning intentions. The first time innovation served imperialistic and arrogant dreams. Now it pushes the neoliberal ideology of knowledge and high tech research serving private capital to the front. What never changed? It's the need of every central government of the younger history to use the Tzaneri area as a platform for ideological expressions. No wonder, if the current minister of Research and Sience Fanis Vatourlos was called the TEPA "imperium of knowledge"

This Mantou/ Kyriazis study not only compares the relations between different power mechanisms by using the strategic valuation of a city area (including all the influential variables), it inquires also the methods of evaluation itself.

Panel1. The tree topographical maps show the tree stages of the urban development around the

former village Tzaneri (now Nea Ilissia) in 1878, 1930 and 2007

Inkjet print on paper, 70 x 100 cm

Ausschnitt der Tafel 1 (der Momentaufnahme von 1878). Das Dorf Tzaneri, ist eine sich selbsterhaltende

Gemeinde mit geringem Handel. Die Stassen folgen geologischen Regeln und Athen scheint noch sehr weit weg

zu sein.

Ausschnitt der Tafel 1 (der Momentaufnahme von 1930). Das Dorf Tzaneri, ist aufgegangen in der neuen Stadterweiterung von Nea Ilissia. Die schnurgerade Aufmarschachse Ikaron Boulevard führt direkt auf das Flughafenhauptgebäude am grössten Platz Athens zu (Plateia Aerodoromiou).

Ausschnitt der Tafel 1 wie sie sich heute darbietet. Die urbane Dichte hat sich bis in das ehemalige Flughafen-

gelände ausgebreitet. Die pelekistische Achse ist zu einer doppelreihigen Baumallee umfunktioniert worden um

den Aufmarschcharakter entgegenzuwirken.

Die Tafel 2 mit den jetzigen Zustand des ehem. Flughafengebiets (2007)

Ausschnitt der Tafel 2. Zeitgenössische Architekturzeichnung des pelekistischen Architekten

Haralambos Vovis

Ausschnitt der Tafel 2. Ein Prototyp Wohngebäude für den pelekistischen Nea Ilisia Stadtteils.

Entworfen 1928 vom Regimearchitekten Ioannis Seliakos

Foto der Tafel 2. Das Design Museum und der alte Flughafenterminal (nun Verwaltungsgebäude des TEPA)

Foto von der Tafel 2. Zu sehen ist der Sitz der HellasSteel im TEPA Gelände

Foto der Tafel 2. Zu sehen sind die Verwaltungszentralen der Spitzentechnologiekonzerne GLJ und Foutris Ltd.

Die beiden Tafeln der Untersuchung in der Ausstellung