When the plans for the new City of Athens were outlined by Stamatis Kleanthes and Eduard Schaubert in the early nineteenth century, Leoforos Vassilissis Sophias was not included in the network of grand boulevards that spread, spoke-like, from the Royal Palace. This may go a little way towards explaining why this strip, which lazily curls north from Syntagma towards Ampelokipi, has no name–and hence no distinct identity. Sandwiched as it is between Kolonaki, Lykavittos, Pagrati’s northern tail, Ilisia, and Ampelokipi, it is identified in sections by various buildings along its route as “Evangelismos”, “Hilton”, and “Megaro Musikis”. Yet it has a special role as the symbolic showcase for the image the Greek capital hopes to project.
When first laid, Leoforos Vassilissis Sophias symbolized the city’s development outward towards what now comprise the Greek capital’s suburbs Wealthy merchants, many from the diaspora, built grand homes along the boulevard. These opulent mansions date to the first wave of internal migration from village to city and were beacons of the prosperity urban society enjoyed. (Sadly, few of these neoclassical gems still stand, among them the former homes of the Benaki and Stathatos families that house, respectively, the Benaki Museum and the Museum of Cycladic Art.) The second wave of internal migration coincides with the development of the boulevard’s northern extension in the 1950s. Leoforos Vassilissis Sophias was now a showcase for contemporary architecture–and post-Civil War Greece’s move away from its past towards “European” modernity.
The first building to attempt this was the Athens Hilton. Completed in 1969, the hotel had stirred tremendous controversy since groundbreaking almost a decade earlier. Opponents of the project fiercely denounced it as “foreign” and “offensive” because it punctured the Athens skyline and thus competed against the only other landmark visible from a distance: the Acropolis. Its sleek, modernist style was a sharp contrast to the 1920s apartment buildings and was such a radical departure from Greek architecture that the artist Yannis Moralis was commissioned to decorate its western façade. (By breaking with architectural tradition, the Hilton inspired experimentation among architects with projects along the boulevard. Examples of these new trends include the black granite and glass building with a rococo outline that houses the design offices of Ilias Barbalias across from the Athens Concert Hall; apartment buildings designed by Nikos Valsamakis at Number 86 and Number 129, and the building at Number 75.)
The completion of the first wing of the National Gallery of Art around the same time created a sort of symmetry on the block. The Gallery was designed by the same team of architects that had created the Athens Hilton. Their design had been selected through a competition held in 1957, but construction had been delayed by bureaucratic tangles over where the Gallery would be built. These buildings brought balance to the boulevard, whose architecture had taken a definite turn towards the avant-garde with the completion of the U. S. Embassy. Designed by Walter Gropius, founder of the celebrated Bauhaus school, the grid-like building features the geometrical forms and smooth surfaces characteristic of this architectural style.
Gradually, other buildings began to fill the space; plans for a park next to the Army Hospital were originally laid in the early 1960s around a statue of the statesman Eleftherios Venizelos commissioned from the sculptor Yannis Pappas. Named Eleftherias Park in honor of the political detainees tortured by the Military Police at an interrogation facility to the rear of the grounds, this was the first park purposely designed by a landscape architect (Panayiotis Vokotopoulos). A small museum dedicated to Venizelos is housed within the Eleftherias Park Arts Center behind the statue.
A more recent edifice is the Athens Concert Hall (Megaron Moussikis), whose construction was staggered over a period of two decades. The idea for a concert hall had been first broached in the 1950s; soon after land for the project was secured from the Greek government and the Friends of Music Society, founded by Alex Triandis, began fundraising. Early contributors included the conductor Dimitris Mitropoulos, who donated the proceeds from his concerts with the Athens Philharmonic Orchestra. Appropriately, one of the auditoriums has been dedicated to his memory. Finally completed in 1991, the Athens Concert Hall is not just impressive on the outside. Its superb acoustics have been praised by world-renowned artists who have performed on its stage. One innovation is the geometric shape of the main concert hall, which also allows for balconies to be adjusted according to the sound requirements of each performance.
Although the boulevard extends to Ampelokipi, where, after the intersection with Leoforos Alexandras its name changes to Kifissias, for most Athenians it ends mentally at Plateia Mavilli. It’s a place I associate with music–jazz, funk, rock–and poetry, the sort of place I imagine Burroughs, Kerouac, and Ginsberg might have made their stomping ground. It’s a place with a special vibe, especially late in the day or at night; a place where Athens still feels familiar.
Public spaces have their own dynamic within cities. Expansive, carefully designed and landscaped plazas are quite often deserted, empty vessels of an architect's vision that no one else shares. Just as inexplicably, are crowded with people. Plateia Mavilli, dedicated to one of Greece's minor poets, Lorenzos Mavillis, is one of those public spaces that seduces you.
The “square” was not designed as a meeting point; the triangular plaza was shaped to guide traffic turning off Vassilissis Sophias but became the focal point of the surrounding neighborhood–and, in one sense, the city’s nightlife. Plateia Mavilli rouses just as the rest of the city lays its weary head on the pillow. It’s rarely the place you set out to go but it’s always a place where you end up. Nightlife hotspots come and go according to the fickleness of fashion, but Mavilli has not only survived, but has done so without succumbing to nightlife trends. Indeed, if Vassilissis Sophias is about change, then Mavilli is about continuity–which is what makes it the most “European” part of Athens. (This continuity begins at Mike (Dimitriou Soutsou 9), the corner patisserie that defied the Greek tradition of syrup-soaked sweets and introduced Athenians to lighter and sugar-free desserts. And while its offerings have since become much trendier, Mike hasn’t vamped up its image by changing its décor or desserts.)
In a city that’s so trend-conscious and which has expanded, geographically and socially, at such a pace that it has completely lost its cohesion, Mavilli is a cultural compatibility test. A rule of thumb: if you’re a “Mavilli person”, suggest it as for a date: if the other person demurs, doesn’t know it or afterwards doesn’t like it, you might not be a good match after all.
“Alternative” best describes the Mavilli ambience. That, and its easy mix of people of different ages, social class, and political leanings. Part of the continuity it offers is that it is as popular among a certain type of high school or college student as it is among their parents. In the warmer months, especially, this mix is most evident as the older “indoor” patrons occupy seats on the pavement and the plateia itself, mingling this way with the younger “outdoor” patrons standing around or perching on whatever ledge they can find.
It’s this refusal to be typed that defines Mavilli, a stubborn independence of trends that can be seen in its bars. Yes, there are eateries along the triangle–and Jima’s Ginger a few meters up Dorylaiou–but it’s the bars that define Mavilli. The oldest is Lora (Dimitriou Soutsou 7) which, fittingly, attracts the most regulars, especially from the neighborhood, and perhaps inspires the most intense conversations. On Mavilli’s other side are Flower (Dorylaiou 2), which has branched out from bar snacks to food, and a few doors down Briki (Dorylaiou 6), my favorite not least because its music never disappoints with its capacity to surprise.
Real drinkers don’t dine: they nosh. Mavilli is true to its reputation for near the triangle’s point is a cantina, or trailer, with what connoisseurs of the kind claim is the best vromiko–slang for the greasy souvlaki, sausage sandwiches, and like foods sold by street food vendors outside football stadiums. I’m told that Mavilli’s cantina has added crepes to the menu as a nod to the younger generation: sometimes youth just doesn’t respect tradition.