Citing the need for a new spatial contract in a globalized world of growing inequality, Hashim Sarkis, curator of the 17th International Architecture Exhibition, asks: “How will we live together?”.

The Greek participation comments on an emblematic example: the Aristotle axis in Thessaloniki, which was designed 100 years ago as the “Boulevard de la Société des Nations”. Today, the axis serves as a unique urban condenser for different populations and social groups: residents, visitors, immigrants, and refugees.

The axis bears the name of the methodical ancient philosopher and polymath, Aristotle, according to whom: Human beings are by nature “political animals” and as such live their lives in the company of others.

Aristotle’s oft-cited formulation allows for multiple investigations into the substance of human nature and the public space of the polis.

The reconstruction of Thessaloniki after it was reduced to ashes in the fire of 1917 is comparable to the creation of modern-day Athens as the capital of the newly independent Greek state after 1821.

The plans for a new Thessaloniki (1918-1921) were signed by Ernest Hébrard, the French head of the International Planning Committee, as architect – city planner, adopted important institutional innovations:

• The deliberate use of the city plan as a tool for urban redevelopment
• The acquisition by the state of the requisite space for communal and public-interest purposes.
• The redistribution and commercialization of urban land with mass construction of multi-story buildings.

These modernization initiatives, unprecedented for Greece as well as for Europe, were combined with an austere street grid and an eclectic classicist urban architecture.

The sweeping reconstruction of Thessaloniki fit well with the broader modernization efforts of Eleftherios Venizelos’s government and the consolidation of Greek sovereignty.

• This new approach to urban planning completely overturned the traditional ethno-religious communal structures of central Thessaloniki. The architectural forms that were adopted, particularly on the monumental Aristotle axis, heralded a new hybrid Greekness with neo-Byzantine overtones. The search for a discernible national architecture served the political ideologies of the ruling elite.

The eclectic regionalism of Thessaloniki can be seen as a precursor to the critical regionalism and problematics that would occupy the generation of Greek architects in the 30s.

The “Boulevard de la Société des Nations” was a grand gesture dominated by a notion of centrality.

• At the root of the interventions foreseen in the urban plan lay the vision of strong political authority. The axis was to be outfitted with the appropriate accessories: arches, monuments, statues, and fountains.
• The pursuit of an eclectic regionalism was underscored by introduction of “neo-Byzantine” details. These decorative motifs formed part of a façade architecture that featured classicist proportions and the alternation of volume and void.
• In the post-war years, it took yet another powerful political intervention by Konstantinos Karamanlis, to complete reconstruction albeit at greater density and with a simplified iconography.

Despite the partial implementation of the original plan, the central monumental promenade of Thessaloniki remains today a pleasant surprise in typology and form, a unique public space with a heightened sense of urbanity.

The monumental axis runs crosswise through the physical geography in which the city, sandwiched between the coast and the foothills of Mount Chortiatis, developed.

• The axis is a corridor with extensions that link two natural elements: the Acropolis, set within the hilltop forest of Seih Sou, and the Thermaic Gulf, with the surrounding mountains of Olympus and Pieria.
• The boulevard’s porticoes, sheltered from the sun and rain, front an array of shops.
• The main path and the open spaces at its two ends attract not only residents of the city but its flora and fauna as well.

The artful isolation of the monuments and monument complexes from the main traffic arteries evidences the environmental approach that Hébrard’s team.

The phenomenon of the urban palimpsest is particularly pronounced in Thessaloniki, a city inhabited without interruption since antiquity.

• Hébrard deliberately situated his great civic square on the site of the ancient forum.
• The Basilica of Saint Demetrios and the Church of Panagia of Halkeon, both restored, have retained their original use since the Byzantine period. The wider area also includes important Ottoman buildings, such as the Bey Hammam and the Bedesten with their characteristic domes.

Traditional communal structures survived in the core of multicultural Thessaloniki until the interwar years.

• The fire of 1917 gravely affected the Jewish community. In the wake of reconstruction, the social geography of the center was radically transformed with the privileged occupation of the area by the Christian-Greek community and the forced exchange of the Muslim population.

Urban land redistribution and radical urban development hastened the destruction of traditional community structures and accelerated the city’s urbanization. The transition to a modern European city organized on economic criteria was combined with the political goal of homogenizing the city and making it “more Greek”.

The Aristotle axis transverses central Thessaloniki, cutting across its social hierarchy:

• Starting from the waterfront and its highly sought-after apartments, it climbs above Egnatia Street, where many refugees and immigrants have settled.
• Modern recreational, entertainment and commercial facilities on the waterfront are complemented higher up the axis by traditional markets (bazaars), the ancient agora and the Church of St. Demetrios.
• Along the axis and behind its uniform architectural features lie a diverse mix of residential apartments, offices, hotels, theaters and concert halls, banks, public organizations.
• The unifying element in this urban cross-section is the sequence of unique public spaces—its squares, sidewalks and arcades, the open archeological site, the courtyard of the Byzantine basilica, and numerous green spaces.

It is a space that embraces political and religious events, cultural activities, games and sports, a space that fosters contacts among visitors, workers, residents, and nomads alike. 

The uniform architectural iconography of the Aristotle axis contains different realities:

• The original vision of nations and communities living together was never realized in full.
• Over time, the hybrid neo-Byzantine identity of the axis was attenuated in part with the incorporation of discordant contemporary structures.
• The public space appears to be fragmentary, socially divided and unevenly developed.
• Urban planning must be discrete and avoid today’s architectural excesses.

To “live together” in the architecturally and socially charged environment of the Aristotle axis, we must rejuvenate the complex dynamic that has driven the century-long reconstruction of modern-day Thessaloniki. A “future for the past” must be grounded in dialectics and not in the name of a process of “rationalization” that would undermine the social dynamic that has characterized the axis through the years.