Lysandros Kaftanzoglou ΛΥΣΑΝΔΡΟΣ ΚΑΥΤΑΝΖΟΓΛΟΥ
Born 1811 Died 1885
Section Four, Number 336
In an era of advancing nationalism, Kaftanzoglou set himself (with)in the effort to promote a purist national identity for the country, - based on ancient prototypes.(1)
Lysandros Kaftanzoglou came to Greece as a young architect just as Athens, under the aegis of King Othon and his father King Ludwig 1 of Bavaria, was undergoing rapid reconstruction and development in an all out effort to turn itself into an enviable European capital city and one that would embody, in stone and mortar, the ideals and aspirations of the new nation.
After a false start in 1839 followed by a lucky break in 1844, Kaftanzoglou became an architectural star in an era of emerging architectural superstars. It was not so much his work as his influence on the students he taught as chancellor of the National Technical University of Athens between 1844 and 1862. He was an avid proponent of a pure classical style in an era when the issue of just ‘how classical’ neoclassical should be was hotly debated. Theories about how to embody the soul of the nation were complicated, sometimes contradictory, and often downright rancorous.
Neoclassicism and the New State
That neoclassical architecture would be the default style for the new city was never in dispute. The choice was not merely to follow established European trends; it was intended to inculcate a sense of patriotic nationalism in the new citizens by connecting the country’s modern architecture directly to Greece’s glorious past. (2)
From the beginning, the architecture of Athens functioned within a strict institutional framework: By 1836 all construction was under the aegis of the Ministry of the Interior whose Architectural Department would vet each and every design. This goes a long way to explaining how Athenian avenues came to be crowded with homogeneous neoclassical mansions and why so many of Athens monumental public buildings would not have been out of place in the Athens of Pericles. Adopting an architectural style that was considered at the time to be modern and liberal as well as one reflecting the country’s past was a win-win option for Greece.
His Life
Lysandros was born in Thessaloniki in 1811. His father was Merkourios Kaftanzoglou and his mother a Frenchwoman, Francoise (Fani) Tavernier. The family was not an insignificant oone in Ottoman Thessaloniki. Merkourios’ father Ioannis Kaftanzoglou was an elder, one of the Greeks in charge of promoting the Greek community’s interests under Ottoman domination, as well as ensuring their compliance. Thessaloniki was the Ottoman’s second most important city and in the early 1800s was an important trading centre.
Ottoman Thessaloniki
Merkourios died in 1818. The family’s situation became precarious after the Greek revolution broke out because Ioannis Kaftanzoglou had been a fervent supporter of the cause. To avoid Ottoman reprisals, Francoise took her sons to live in Marseilles. Lysandros went on to study architecture at the prestigious San Luca Academy in Rome where he graduated with distinction. It was not at all certain that he would return to Greece which had been declared a state in the London Protocol of 1830. His own home town was not part of the new nation. Furthermore, he was receiving a gratifying amount of praise and awards for his neoclassical designs in Europe before finally coming to Athens in 1838.
He must have been tempted by the frenzy of architectural activity that the declaration of Athens as Greece’s capital in 1834 had engendered. Athens had suddenly become the place for European architects, archaeologists, and artists to visit, study, record, and, for some, to draw up plans to make their own mark on the tabula rasa that was the emerging city. Stamatis Kleanthes, (a fellow Greek from north of the new state’s borders) and his partner Eduard Schaubert had preceded him by several years and had already produced a city plan whose outlines can still be seen in the city centre. By the time Kaftanzoglou arrived, Athens was awash with city planners, architects and engineers, and a good many of them were foreigners who were monopolizing the purse strings of king Othon and his father King Ludwig.
Lysandros did meet the king and, in 1839, in an exhibition held inside the Thisseon at the foot of the Acropolis, he presented his own austere town plan, meant to counter the romantic garden city north of the acropolis envisioned by Kleanthes and Schaubert. He proposed a modern grid system to the east and north-east of the acropolis and a total separation between new development and what was left of the rabbit warren of streets in the old city (today’s Plaka and Psyrri).
He did not manage to break into the magic circle of those favoured with commissions and instead went on to greener pastures in Constantinople. He might never have returned but, in 1844, local anger in Greece at civil service jobs going to foreigners came to a head and a constitutional change swept all foreigners out of the civil service. (3) This left openings for Greek professionals like Kaftanzoglou. Apparently Othon had noticed him in 1839. The king invited him to become the first Greek to head the Royal School of Arts (today’s Polytechnic), a post that he would hold for the next eighteen years. He was 33 years old.
His Tenure at the Polytechnical University
Under his Aegis, the school grew and prospered. It is interesting that, as a trained architect himself, he did not immediately institute a Department of Architecture. His reasons were aesthetic. He believed that architecture was not a separate discipline from the fine arts. In fact, Kaftanzoglou encouraged the subjugation of the applied arts to the fine arts. Looking back, it seems an odd perspective given his own education. When questioned, he would respond that Greece was not yet ready. Some of his detractors (and there were quite a few) suggested that he just wanted to keep architectural commissions for himself. The result was the delayed emergence of home grown Greek architects but wonderful encouragement for the painters and sculptors who attended the school.
His position as chancellor opened up many opportunities such as membership in the influential Greek archaeological society, his participation in the committee for a national Archaeological Museum and many other posts. His aesthetic and practical views became ones to be reckoned with.
As a member of the Archaeological Society, Kaftanzoglou defended the stripping of the acropolis of all medieval structures like the Frankish Tower which at one point he called ‘Turkish’. There were some people at the time who did not think everything after Pericles should be obliterated. He countered with the argument that Greece had no obligation to preserve a ‘barbarous monument’. Only what was the ‘classical’ reflected the true nature of the Greek people and that this was the mirror that state should be holding up.
It was not demolished until 1875. Heinrich Schliemann footed the bill.
As a classical purist, Kaftanzoglou was at odds with Stamatis Kleanthes’ tendency to romantic touches and, towards the end of his life, looked upon my hero, architect Ernst Ziller, with an equally jaundiced eye. He believed that he had found the perfect model for Athens and was offended by deviations. It must have rankled that the design of the neoclassical triumphs of the Library, the University, and The Academy on Panepistimiou Street, so emblematic of his aesthetic, had been designed by the Hansen brothers. Apparently he did have a hand in altering some of the University during its erection, but still…
Kaftanzoglou resigned his post at the Polytechnical school when his mentor King Otto was deposed in 1862. But he continued working until his death in October 1885.
His Work
Kaftanzoglou’s two triumphs were the Arsakeion and the Averoff Building in the Athens Polytechnical complex. He also built many neoclassical churches. They still impress, but may not stop you in your tracks with the possible exception of Agios Constantinos and Eleni near Plateia Omonia.
The Arsakeion
Panepistimiou Street, Number 47-9 (on the corner of Panepistimiou and Pesmazoglou Streets)
Constructed between 1846 and 1852
The entrance today
Apostolos Arsakis (1789 – 1869), a wealthy Romanian Greek donated 600,000 drachmas for the establishment of female education institutes in Athens. In gratitude, this building was named after him. Experts claim that Kaftanzoglou’s design is the most authentic example of ‘Hellenised’ neoclassicism still standing in the city. It is an austere, harmonious building with an impressive marble entrance flanked by two Doric columns. Its severe central core is mitigated by projecting wings and its upper story is softened by a row of Ionic half columns. Kaftanzoglou had stolen this commission out from under Stamatis Kleanthes who had first been invited to submit a design. A very public and rancorous disagreement between the two architects ensued.
Kaftanzoglou won. When it came to the erection of public buildings, Kaftanzoglou had the edge. Kleanthes went on to build more stylishly eccentric buildings for private clients like the Duchess of Plaisance.
The ground floor of the Arsakeion was converted into shops in the 1930s but was returned to its original splendour by architect Alexandros Kalligas. It now houses the Greek Council of State.
The Averoff Building, now part of the National Metsovian Technical University of Athens on Patission Street
Constructed Between 1862 and 1876
Scene of the famous November 17, 1973 uprising of students against the military junta, the Athens Polytechnical University is better known for this today than for its architecture. Sadly it is often covered in graffiti, something that would have horrified its creator.
In her book, Neoclassical Architecture in Greece, Adami describes it as ‘a classical sculptural composition strictly organized around its axis of symmetry.’ Two identical ground floor structures flank the main entrance. This building is self-contained, elegant in its simplicity, and monumental in the best sense of the word.
It is no accident that its elevated central portico resembles the Erectheion on the acropolis. Kaftanzoglou had had a hand in its excavation and it was certainly on his mind when he designed this building. Its portico has pure white Ionic columns topped by the impeccable order of the entablature. Its loggias and open spaces suit the attic climate just as did its prototype. (4
The building was renovated in 2021 and houses the School of Architecture.
Kaftanzoglou’s Three Aisled Basilicas
The churches are all neoclassical three aisled basilicas of varying levels of grandeur. Each displays degrees of what experts term ancient Greek, Romanesque, and Byzantine influences, a mix possibly depending to some degree upon their donors’ wishes. Certainly they all reflect nineteenth century bourgeois optimism. Built for large congregations, they often took years to complete because of funding problems. All are in stark contrast to those bijoux byzantine churches still standing in the city centre.
The Church of Agios Andreas in Patras, built between 1836 and 1845.
Agia Irini at number 36 Αιόλου Street, Athens
Commissioned in 1846 and built between 1847 and 1850
Tucked away among so many other buildings, it is hard to grasp the sheer volume of this church. The view of the north façade below gives an idea of its size and its ‘clear intersecting volumes’. (5)
Agios Georgios Karytsis in Plateia Karytsis just behind the National History Museum on Stadiou Street. Built between 1846 and 1850, it is noted for its monumental marble entrance topped by a white belfry.
The Catholic Cathedral of Saint Dionysius, Panepistimiou & 9 Omirou, built between 1858 and 1865
The cathedral was originally designed by German architect Leo Von Klenze. Kaftanzoglou was invited in 1858 to modify the design. He did this by proposing a scaled down version of the original design and less ornamentation, especially on the west façade’s arcaded porch.
Agios Constantinos and Eleni near Omonia Square (Number 48 on the street named after the church). Designed in 1869, and constructed from 1870-72 to 1893, it was not inaugurated until 1905, long after Kaftanzoglou’s death.
In 1869, the City decided to build Agios Constantinos and Eleni to commemorate the 1868 birth of Crown Prince Constantine, quite a civic gesture! Kaftanzoglou’s own aesthetic vision is most fully realized here, particularly the façade with its Corinthian columns and pediments. The church covers an area of 1000 square meters and is 32 metres in height from floor to dome. It was damaged in the earthquakes of 1981 and 1999 and made fully safe again only in 2013.
As an interesting footnote, Agios Constantinos and Eleni now faces the much more visited neoclassical gem that is The National Theatre of Greece, designed and built by Ernst Ziller between 1895 and 1901. Luckily, Kaftanzoglou did not live to see that.
Ziller’s theatre
A Summing Up
Was Kaftanzoglou too rigid? Certainly his purist streak did not allow for innovation or argument. Many of the elements of the Averoff building are the same as those in Agia Irini twenty or so years earlier. Like Mr Collins in Pride and Prejudice, he may have wondered what possible benefit there could be in alteration.
His 1839 plan proposed a total separation between the old and new town suggests a certain lack of understanding of how the city could work for those already living there. Eradicating two thousand years of Greek attitudes which were also embedded in the design of Athens over those centuries, is not quite as easy as tearing down a Frankish tower on the Acropolis.
I wonder if there was ever any kind of backlash to all of this neoclassical ‘civilising’? One visitor did note that although Athenian houses had skin deep Neoclassical facades they had ‘indigenous backs’! It may have been meant as an insult but I rather like the surprising behinds of many buildings that seem so severe and uncompromisingly neoclassical - until you enter their balconied and less rigidly structured courtyards or backyards.
Kaftanzoglou’s aesthetic seems to have worked well with public buildings but it has to be noted that his wealthy admirers and supporters preferred to use more flamboyant and eclectic architects like Kleanthes, Ziller, and later Anastasios Metaxas when it came to building their own homes.
Still, neoclassicism in one form or another reigned until well into the twentieth century when it began to meet serious aesthetic opposition in an era of new technologies, new materials, and new ideas about what Athens should become.
His Grave
Section Four, Number 336
The Map
Footnotes
(1) See: Monumentality and its Shadows: A Quest for Modern Greek Architectural Discourse in Nineteenth-Century Athens (1834-1862) by Irene Fatsea (https://core.ac.uk/download/4430654.pdf) p. 217
(2)Even before Othon’s arrival, Greek governor Ioannis Capodistria had ordained a severe version of it because of its simplicity, functionality and its radical departure from Ottoman architecture which he regarded as a symbol of backwardness and tyranny. Wooden balconies, enclosed wooden porches, and huge overhanging eaves were out; severe symmetrical, facades were in.
(3) This law was mean to placate the inhabitants of ‘old Greece’ over the wealthier Greeks and foreigners who had flooded the country after 1830. It was not always observed to the letter but it did give Kaftanzoglou the entrée he needed.
(4) The history and inspiration of both the neoclassical and Greek revival movements started with archaeology, first in Italy and then in Greece. The term Greek Revival was first used by architecture professor Charles Robert Cockerell (1788-1863) in a lecture he gave at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1842. Greek revival buildings are basically imitations of ancient temples, incorporating to one degree or another their symmetry and gravitas with the use of ancient styled columns, porticos, low pitched gable roofs and entablatures (cornice, frieze, and architrave). In Greece it was an architectural extension of the neoclassical style. The Greek revival style was chosen for the University, the National Library, and the Greek Academy. There is a rotunda on its eastern façade, the university’s ceremonial hall where I once had the pleasure of seeing the Apology of Socrates. It would be hard to imagine a more evocative setting unless it was the original.
Some British did go a little crazy over Greek
revival. Belsay Hall, a private home near Newcastle is
based on the temple of Hephaestus. Even Cockerell knew it was not suitable for domestic dwellings:
(5)Agia Irini functioned as Athens’ Metropolitan church from the time of its inauguration until 1862. It replaced a much loved earlier Agia Irini that had been damaged during the war of Independence and which, in its ruined and patched up state, had still managed to host the coronation of King Othon, his coming of age ceremony in 1835 and the funeral of Theodoros Kolokotronis in 1843. Agia Irini has a special place in the history of 19th century Athens. It was declared a monument of special interest by the Ministry of Culture in 1972.
Sources:
https://www.google.gr/books/edition/Greece/9kNHAgAAQBAJ?hl=el&gbpv=1&dq=Lysandros+Kaftanzoglou&pg From Greece, Modern Architectures in History
Monumentality and its Shadows: A Quest for Modern Greek Architectural Discourse in Nineteenth-Century Athens (1834-1862) by Irene Fatsea(https://core.ac.uk/download/4430654.pdf)
Neoclassical Architecture in Greece by Biris and Adami
Lysandros Kaftanzoglou ΛΥΣΑΝΔΡΟΣ ΚΑΥΤΑΝΖΟΓΛΟΥ
Born 1811 Died 1885
Section Four, Number 336
In an era of advancing nationalism, Kaftanzoglou set himself (with)in the effort to promote a purist national identity for the country, based on ancient prototypes.(1)
Lysandros Kaftanzoglou came to Greece as a young architect just as Athens, under the aegis of King Othon and his father King Ludwig 1 of Bavaria, was undergoing rapid reconstruction and development in an all out effort to turn itself into an enviable capital city and one that would embody, in stone and mortar, the ideals and aspirations of the new nation.
After a false start in 1839 followed by a lucky break in 1844, Kaftanzoglou became an architectural star in an era of emerging architectural superstars. It was not so much his work as his influence on the students he taught as chancellor of the National Technical University of Athens between 1844 and 1862. He was an avid proponent of a pure classical style in an era when the issue of just ‘how classical’ neoclassical should be was hotly debated. Theories about how to embody the soul of the nation were complicated, sometimes contradictory, and often downright rancorous.
Neoclassicism and the New State
That neoclassical architecture would be the default style for the new city was never in dispute. The choice was not merely to follow established European trends; it was intended to inculcate a sense of patriotic nationalism in the new citizens by connecting the country’s modern architecture directly to Greece’s glorious past. (2)
From the beginning, the architecture of Athens functioned within a strict institutional framework: By 1836 all construction was under the aegis of the Ministry of the Interior whose Architectural Department would vet each and every design. This goes a long way to explaining how Athenian avenues came to be crowded with homogeneous neoclassical mansions and why so many of Athens monumental public buildings would not have been out of place in the Athens of Pericles. Adopting an architectural style that was considered at the time to be modern and liberal as well as one reflecting the country’s past was a win-win option for Greece.
His Life
Lysandros was born in Thessaloniki in 1811. His father was Merkourios Kaftanzoglou and his mother a Frenchwoman, Francoise (Fani) Tavernier. The family was not an insignificant one in Ottoman Thessaloniki. Merkourios’ father Ioannis Kaftanzoglou was an elder, one of the Greeks in charge of promoting the Greek community’s interests under Ottoman domination, as well as ensuring their compliance. Thessaloniki was the Ottoman’s second most important city and in the early 1800s was an important trading centre.
Ottoman Thessaloniki
Merkourios died in 1818. The family’s situation became precarious after the Greek revolution broke out because Ioannis Kaftanzoglou had been a fervent supporter of the cause. To avoid Ottoman reprisals, Francoise took her sons to live in Marseilles. Lysandros went on to study architecture at the prestigious San Luca Academy in Rome where he graduated with distinction. It was not at all certain that he would return to Greece which had been declared a state in the London Protocol of 1830. His own home town was not part of the new nation. Furthermore, he was receiving a gratifying amount of praise and awards for his neoclassical designs in Europe before finally coming to Athens in 1838.
He must have been tempted by the frenzy of architectural activity that the declaration of Athens as Greece’s capital in 1834 had engendered. Athens had suddenly become the place for European architects, archaeologists, and artists to visit, study, record, and, for some, to draw up plans to make their own mark on the tabula rasa that was the emerging city. Stamatis Kleanthes, (a fellow Greek from north of the new state’s borders) and his partner Eduard Schaubert had preceded him by several years and had already produced a city plan whose outlines can still be seen in the city centre. By the time Kaftanzoglou arrived, Athens was awash with city planners, architects and engineers, and a good many of them were foreigners who were monopolizing the purse strings of king Othon and his father King Ludwig.
Lysandros did meet the king and, in 1839, in an exhibition held inside the Thisseon at the foot of the Acropolis, he presented his own austere town plan, meant to counter the romantic garden city north of the acropolis envisioned by Kleanthes and Schaubert. He proposed a modern grid system to the east and north-east of the acropolis and a total separation between new development and what was left of the rabbit warren of streets in the old city (today’s Plaka and Psyrri).
He did not manage to break into the magic circle of those favoured with commissions and instead went on to greener pastures in Constantinople. He might never have returned but, in 1844, local anger in Greece at civil service jobs going to foreigners came to a head and a constitutional change swept all foreigners out of the civil service. (3) This left openings for Greek professionals like Kaftanzoglou. Apparently Othon had noticed him in 1839. The king invited him to become the first Greek to head the Royal School of Arts (today’s Polytechnic), a post that he would hold for the next eighteen years. He was 33 years old.
His Tenure at the Polytechnical University
Under his Aegis, the school grew and prospered. It is interesting that, as a trained architect himself, he did not immediately institute a Department of Architecture. His reasons were aesthetic. He believed that architecture was not a separate discipline from the fine arts. In fact, Kaftanzoglou encouraged the subjugation of the applied arts to the fine arts. Looking back, it seems an odd perspective given his own education. When questioned, he would respond that Greece was not yet ready. Some of his detractors (and there were quite a few) suggested that he just wanted to keep architectural commissions for himself. The result was the delayed emergence of home grown Greek architects but wonderful encouragement for the painters and sculptors who attended the school.
His position as chancellor opened up many opportunities such as membership in the influential Greek archaeological society, his participation in the committee for a national Archaeological Museum and many other posts. His aesthetic and practical views became ones to be reckoned with.
As a member of the Archaeological Society, Kaftanzoglou defended the stripping of the acropolis of all medieval structures like the Frankish Tower which at one point he called ‘Turkish’. There were some people at the time who did not think everything after Pericles should be obliterated. He countered with the argument that Greece had no obligation to preserve a ‘barbarous monument’. Only what was the ‘classical’ reflected the true nature of the Greek people and that this was the mirror that state should be holding up.
It was not demolished until 1875. Heinrich Schliemann footed the bill.
As a classical purist, Kaftanzoglou was at odds with Stamatis Kleanthes’ tendency to romantic touches and, towards the end of his life, looked upon my hero, architect Ernst Ziller, with an equally jaundiced eye. He believed that he had found the perfect model for Athens and was offended by deviations. It must have rankled that the design of the neoclassical triumphs of the Library, the University, and The Academy on Panepistimiou Street, so emblematic of his aesthetic, had been designed by the Hansen brothers. Apparently he did have a hand in altering some of the University during its erection, but still…
Kaftanzoglou resigned his post at the Polytechnical school when his mentor King Otto was deposed in 1862. But he continued working until his death in October 1885.
His Work
Kaftanzoglou’s two triumphs were the Arsakeion and the Averoff Building in the Athens Polytechnical complex. He also built many neoclassical churches. They still impress, but may not stop you in your tracks with the possible exception of Agios Constantinos and Eleni near Plateia Omonia.
The Arsakeion
Panepistimiou Street, Number 47-9 (on the corner of Panepistimiou and Pesmazoglou Streets)
Constructed between 1846 and 1852
The entrance today
Apostolos Arsakis (1789 – 1869), a wealthy Romanian Greek donated 600,000 drachmas for the establishment of female education institutes in Athens. In gratitude, this building was named after him. Experts claim that Kaftanzoglou’s design is the most authentic example of ‘Hellenised’ neoclassicism still standing in the city. It is an austere, harmonious building with an impressive marble entrance flanked by two Doric columns. Its severe central core is mitigated by projecting wings and its upper story is softened by a row of Ionic half columns. Kaftanzoglou had stolen this commission out from under Stamatis Kleanthes who had first been invited to submit a design. A very public and rancorous disagreement between the two architects ensued.
Kaftanzoglou won. When it came to the erection of public buildings, Kaftanzoglou had the edge. Kleanthes went on to build more stylishly eccentric buildings for private clients like the Duchess of Plaisance.
The ground floor of the Arsakeion was converted into shops in the 1930s but was returned to its original splendour by architect Alexandros Kalligas. It now houses the Greek Council of State.
The Averoff Building, now part of the National Metsovian Technical University of Athens on Patission Street
Constructed Between 1862 and 1876
Scene of the famous November 17, 1973 uprising of students against the military junta, the Athens Polytechnical University is better known for this today than for its architecture. Sadly it is often covered in graffiti, something that would have horrified its creator.
In her book, Neoclassical Architecture in Greece, Adami describes it as ‘a classical sculptural composition strictly organized around its axis of symmetry.’ Two identical ground floor structures flank the main entrance. This building is self-contained, elegant in its simplicity, and monumental in the best sense of the word.
It is no accident that its elevated central portico resembles the Erectheion on the acropolis. Kaftanzoglou had had a hand in its excavation and it was certainly on his mind when he designed this building. Its portico has pure white Ionic columns topped by the impeccable order of the entablature. Its loggias and open spaces suit the attic climate just as did its prototype. (4)
The building was renovated in 2021 and houses the School of Architecture.
Kaftanzoglou’s Three Aisled Basilicas
The churches are all neoclassical three aisled basilicas of varying levels of grandeur. Each displays degrees of what experts term ancient Greek, Romanesque, and Byzantine influences, a mix possibly depending to some degree upon their donors’ wishes. Certainly they all reflect nineteenth century bourgeois optimism. Built for large congregations, they often took years to complete because of funding problems. All are in stark contrast to those bijoux byzantine churches still standing in the city centre.
The Church of Agios Andreas in Patras, built between 1836 and 1845.
Agia Irini at number 36 Αιόλου Street, Athens
Commissioned in 1846 and built between 1847 and 1850
Tucked away among so many other buildings, it is hard to grasp the sheer volume of this church. The view of the north façade below gives an idea of its size and its ‘clear intersecting volumes’. (5)
Agios Georgios Karytsis in Plateia Karytsis just behind the National History Museum on Stadiou Street. Built between 1846 and 1850, it is noted for its monumental marble entrance topped by a white belfry.
The Catholic Cathedral of Saint Dionysius, Panepistimiou & 9 Omirou, built between 1858 and 1865
The cathedral was originally designed by German architect Leo Von Klenze. Kaftanzoglou was invited in 1858 to modify the design. He did this by proposing a scaled down version of the original design and less ornamentation, especially on the west façade’s arcaded porch.
Agios Constantinos and Eleni near Omonia Square (Number 48 on the street named after the church). Designed in 1869, and constructed from 1870-72 to 1893, it was not inaugurated until 1905, long after Kaftanzoglou’s death.
In 1869, the City decided to build Agios Constantinos and Eleni to commemorate the 1868 birth of Crown Prince Constantine, quite a civic gesture! Kaftanzoglou’s own aesthetic vision is most fully realized here, particularly the façade with its Corinthian columns and pediments. The church covers an area of 1000 square meters and is 32 metres in height from floor to dome. It was damaged in the earthquakes of 1981 and 1999 and made fully safe again only in 2013.
As an interesting footnote, Agios Constantinos and Eleni now faces the much more visited neoclassical gem that is The National Theatre of Greece, designed and built by Ernst Ziller between 1895 and 1901. Luckily, Kaftanzoglou did not live to see that.
Ziller’s theatre
A Summing Up
Was Kaftanzoglou too rigid? Certainly his purist streak did not allow for innovation or argument. Many of the elements of the Averoff building are the same as those in Agia Irini twenty or so years earlier. Like Mr Collins in Pride and Prejudice, he may have wondered what possible benefit there could be in alteration.
His 1839 plan proposed a total separation between the old and new town suggests a certain lack of understanding of how the city could work for those already living there. Eradicating two thousand years of Greek attitudes which were also embedded in the design of Athens over those centuries, is not quite as easy as tearing down a Frankish tower on the Acropolis.
I wonder if there was ever any kind of backlash to all of this neoclassical ‘civilising’? One visitor did note that although Athenian houses had skin deep Neoclassical facades they had ‘indigenous backs’! It may have been meant as an insult but I rather like the surprising behinds of many buildings that seem so severe and uncompromisingly neoclassical - until you enter their balconied and less rigidly structured courtyards or backyards.
Kaftanzoglou’s aesthetic seems to have worked well with public buildings but it has to be noted that his wealthy admirers and supporters preferred to use more flamboyant and eclectic architects like Kleanthes, Ziller, and later Anastasios Metaxas when it came to building their own homes.
Still, neoclassicism in one form or another reigned until well into the twentieth century when it began to meet serious aesthetic opposition in an era of new technologies, new materials, and new ideas about what Athens should become.
His Grave
Section Four, Number 336
The Map
Footnotes
(1) See: Monumentality and its Shadows: A Quest for Modern Greek Architectural Discourse in Nineteenth-Century Athens (1834-1862) by Irene Fatsea (https://core.ac.uk/download/4430654.pdf) p. 217
(2)Even before Othon’s arrival, Greek governor Ioannis Capodistria had ordained a severe version of it because of its simplicity, functionality and its radical departure from Ottoman architecture which he regarded as a symbol of backwardness and tyranny. Wooden balconies, enclosed wooden porches, and huge overhanging eaves were out; severe symmetrical, facades were in.
(3) This law was mean to placate the inhabitants of ‘old Greece’ over the wealthier Greeks and foreigners who had flooded the country after 1830. It was not always observed to the letter but it did give Kaftanzoglou the entrée he needed.
(4) The history and inspiration of both the neoclassical and Greek revival movements started with archaeology, first in Italy and then in Greece. The term Greek Revival was first used by architecture professor Charles Robert Cockerell (1788-1863) in a lecture he gave at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1842. Greek revival buildings are basically imitations of ancient temples, incorporating to one degree or another their symmetry and gravitas with the use of ancient styled columns, porticos, low pitched gable roofs and entablatures (cornice, frieze, and architrave). In Greece it was an architectural extension of the neoclassical style. The Greek revival style was chosen for the University, the National Library, and the Greek Academy. There is a rotunda on its eastern façade, the university’s ceremonial hall where I once had the pleasure of seeing the Apology of Socrates. It would be hard to imagine a more evocative setting unless it was the original.
(5)Agia Irini functioned as Athens’ Metropolitan church from the time of its inauguration until 1862. It replaced a much loved earlier Agia Irini that had been damaged during the war of Independence and which, in its ruined and patched up state, had still managed to host the coronation of King Othon, his coming of age ceremony in 1835 and the funeral of Theodoros Kolokotronis in 1843. Agia Irini has a special place in the history of 19th century Athens. It was declared a monument of special interest by the Ministry of Culture in 1972.
Sources:
https://www.google.gr/books/edition/Greece/9kNHAgAAQBAJ?hl=el&gbpv=1&dq=Lysandros+Kaftanzoglou&pg From Greece, Modern Architectures in History
Monumentality and its Shadows: A Quest for Modern Greek Architectural Discourse in Nineteenth-Century Athens (1834-1862) by Irene Fatsea(https://core.ac.uk/download/4430654.pdf)
Neoclassical Architecture in Greece by Biris and Adami
Lysandros Kaftanzoglou ΛΥΣΑΝΔΡΟΣ ΚΑΥΤΑΝΖΟΓΛΟΥ
Born 1811 Died 1885
Section Four, Number 336
In an era of advancing nationalism, Kaftanzoglou set himself (with)in the effort to promote a purist national identity for the country, based on ancient prototypes.(1)
Lysandros Kaftanzoglou came to Greece as a young architect just as Athens, under the aegis of King Othon and his father King Ludwig 1 of Bavaria, was undergoing rapid reconstruction and development in an all out effort to turn itself into an enviable capital city and one that would embody, in stone and mortar, the ideals and aspirations of the new nation.
After a false start in 1839 followed by a lucky break in 1844, Kaftanzoglou became an architectural star in an era of emerging architectural superstars. It was not so much his work as his influence on the students he taught as chancellor of the National Technical University of Athens between 1844 and 1862. He was an avid proponent of a pure classical style in an era when the issue of just ‘how classical’ neoclassical should be was hotly debated. Theories about how to embody the soul of the nation were complicated, sometimes contradictory, and often downright rancorous.
Neoclassicism and the New State
That neoclassical architecture would be the default style for the new city was never in dispute. The choice was not merely to follow established European trends; it was intended to inculcate a sense of patriotic nationalism in the new citizens by connecting the country’s modern architecture directly to Greece’s glorious past. (2)
From the beginning, the architecture of Athens functioned within a strict institutional framework: By 1836 all construction was under the aegis of the Ministry of the Interior whose Architectural Department would vet each and every design. This goes a long way to explaining how Athenian avenues came to be crowded with homogeneous neoclassical mansions and why so many of Athens monumental public buildings would not have been out of place in the Athens of Pericles. Adopting an architectural style that was considered at the time to be modern and liberal as well as one reflecting the country’s past was a win-win option for Greece.
His Life
Lysandros was born in Thessaloniki in 1811. His father was Merkourios Kaftanzoglou and his mother a Frenchwoman, Francoise (Fani) Tavernier. The family was not an insignificant one in Ottoman Thessaloniki. Merkourios’ father Ioannis Kaftanzoglou was an elder, one of the Greeks in charge of promoting the Greek community’s interests under Ottoman domination, as well as ensuring their compliance. Thessaloniki was the Ottoman’s second most important city and in the early 1800s was an important trading centre.
Ottoman Thessaloniki
Merkourios died in 1818. The family’s situation became precarious after the Greek revolution broke out because Ioannis Kaftanzoglou had been a fervent supporter of the cause. To avoid Ottoman reprisals, Francoise took her sons to live in Marseilles. Lysandros went on to study architecture at the prestigious San Luca Academy in Rome where he graduated with distinction. It was not at all certain that he would return to Greece which had been declared a state in the London Protocol of 1830. His own home town was not part of the new nation. Furthermore, he was receiving a gratifying amount of praise and awards for his neoclassical designs in Europe before finally coming to Athens in 1838.
He must have been tempted by the frenzy of architectural activity that the declaration of Athens as Greece’s capital in 1834 had engendered. Athens had suddenly become the place for European architects, archaeologists, and artists to visit, study, record, and, for some, to draw up plans to make their own mark on the tabula rasa that was the emerging city. Stamatis Kleanthes, (a fellow Greek from north of the new state’s borders) and his partner Eduard Schaubert had preceded him by several years and had already produced a city plan whose outlines can still be seen in the city centre. By the time Kaftanzoglou arrived, Athens was awash with city planners, architects and engineers, and a good many of them were foreigners who were monopolizing the purse strings of king Othon and his father King Ludwig.
Lysandros did meet the king and, in 1839, in an exhibition held inside the Thisseon at the foot of the Acropolis, he presented his own austere town plan, meant to counter the romantic garden city north of the acropolis envisioned by Kleanthes and Schaubert. He proposed a modern grid system to the east and north-east of the acropolis and a total separation between new development and what was left of the rabbit warren of streets in the old city (today’s Plaka and Psyrri).
He did not manage to break into the magic circle of those favoured with commissions and instead went on to greener pastures in Constantinople. He might never have returned but, in 1844, local anger in Greece at civil service jobs going to foreigners came to a head and a constitutional change swept all foreigners out of the civil service. (3) This left openings for Greek professionals like Kaftanzoglou. Apparently Othon had noticed him in 1839. The king invited him to become the first Greek to head the Royal School of Arts (today’s Polytechnic), a post that he would hold for the next eighteen years. He was 33 years old.
His Tenure at the Polytechnical University
Under his Aegis, the school grew and prospered. It is interesting that, as a trained architect himself, he did not immediately institute a Department of Architecture. His reasons were aesthetic. He believed that architecture was not a separate discipline from the fine arts. In fact, Kaftanzoglou encouraged the subjugation of the applied arts to the fine arts. Looking back, it seems an odd perspective given his own education. When questioned, he would respond that Greece was not yet ready. Some of his detractors (and there were quite a few) suggested that he just wanted to keep architectural commissions for himself. The result was the delayed emergence of home grown Greek architects but wonderful encouragement for the painters and sculptors who attended the school.
His position as chancellor opened up many opportunities such as membership in the influential Greek archaeological society, his participation in the committee for a national Archaeological Museum and many other posts. His aesthetic and practical views became ones to be reckoned with.
As a member of the Archaeological Society, Kaftanzoglou defended the stripping of the acropolis of all medieval structures like the Frankish Tower which at one point he called ‘Turkish’. There were some people at the time who did not think everything after Pericles should be obliterated. He countered with the argument that Greece had no obligation to preserve a ‘barbarous monument’. Only what was the ‘classical’ reflected the true nature of the Greek people and that this was the mirror that state should be holding up.
It was not demolished until 1875. Heinrich Schliemann footed the bill.
As a classical purist, Kaftanzoglou was at odds with Stamatis Kleanthes’ tendency to romantic touches and, towards the end of his life, looked upon my hero, architect Ernst Ziller, with an equally jaundiced eye. He believed that he had found the perfect model for Athens and was offended by deviations. It must have rankled that the design of the neoclassical triumphs of the Library, the University, and The Academy on Panepistimiou Street, so emblematic of his aesthetic, had been designed by the Hansen brothers. Apparently he did have a hand in altering some of the University during its erection, but still…
Kaftanzoglou resigned his post at the Polytechnical school when his mentor King Otto was deposed in 1862. But he continued working until his death in October 1885.
His Work
Kaftanzoglou’s two triumphs were the Arsakeion and the Averoff Building in the Athens Polytechnical complex. He also built many neoclassical churches. They still impress, but may not stop you in your tracks with the possible exception of Agios Constantinos and Eleni near Plateia Omonia.
The Arsakeion
Panepistimiou Street, Number 47-9 (on the corner of Panepistimiou and Pesmazoglou Streets)
Constructed between 1846 and 1852
The entrance today
Apostolos Arsakis (1789 – 1869), a wealthy Romanian Greek donated 600,000 drachmas for the establishment of female education institutes in Athens. In gratitude, this building was named after him. Experts claim that Kaftanzoglou’s design is the most authentic example of ‘Hellenised’ neoclassicism still standing in the city. It is an austere, harmonious building with an impressive marble entrance flanked by two Doric columns. Its severe central core is mitigated by projecting wings and its upper story is softened by a row of Ionic half columns. Kaftanzoglou had stolen this commission out from under Stamatis Kleanthes who had first been invited to submit a design. A very public and rancorous disagreement between the two architects ensued.
Kaftanzoglou won. When it came to the erection of public buildings, Kaftanzoglou had the edge. Kleanthes went on to build more stylishly eccentric buildings for private clients like the Duchess of Plaisance.
The ground floor of the Arsakeion was converted into shops in the 1930s but was returned to its original splendour by architect Alexandros Kalligas. It now houses the Greek Council of State.
The Averoff Building, now part of the National Metsovian Technical University of Athens on Patission Street
Constructed Between 1862 and 1876
Scene of the famous November 17, 1973 uprising of students against the military junta, the Athens Polytechnical University is better known for this today than for its architecture. Sadly it is often covered in graffiti, something that would have horrified its creator.
In her book, Neoclassical Architecture in Greece, Adami describes it as ‘a classical sculptural composition strictly organized around its axis of symmetry.’ Two identical ground floor structures flank the main entrance. This building is self-contained, elegant in its simplicity, and monumental in the best sense of the word.
It is no accident that its elevated central portico resembles the Erectheion on the acropolis. Kaftanzoglou had had a hand in its excavation and it was certainly on his mind when he designed this building. Its portico has pure white Ionic columns topped by the impeccable order of the entablature. Its loggias and open spaces suit the attic climate just as did its prototype. (4)
The building was renovated in 2021 and houses the School of Architecture.
Kaftanzoglou’s Three Aisled Basilicas
The churches are all neoclassical three aisled basilicas of varying levels of grandeur. Each displays degrees of what experts term ancient Greek, Romanesque, and Byzantine influences, a mix possibly depending to some degree upon their donors’ wishes. Certainly they all reflect nineteenth century bourgeois optimism. Built for large congregations, they often took years to complete because of funding problems. All are in stark contrast to those bijoux byzantine churches still standing in the city centre.
The Church of Agios Andreas in Patras, built between 1836 and 1845.
Agia Irini at number 36 Αιόλου Street, Athens
Commissioned in 1846 and built between 1847 and 1850
Tucked away among so many other buildings, it is hard to grasp the sheer volume of this church. The view of the north façade below gives an idea of its size and its ‘clear intersecting volumes’. (5)
Agios Georgios Karytsis in Plateia Karytsis just behind the National History Museum on Stadiou Street. Built between 1846 and 1850, it is noted for its monumental marble entrance topped by a white belfry.
The Catholic Cathedral of Saint Dionysius, Panepistimiou & 9 Omirou, built between 1858 and 1865
The cathedral was originally designed by German architect Leo Von Klenze. Kaftanzoglou was invited in 1858 to modify the design. He did this by proposing a scaled down version of the original design and less ornamentation, especially on the west façade’s arcaded porch.
Agios Constantinos and Eleni near Omonia Square (Number 48 on the street named after the church). Designed in 1869, and constructed from 1870-72 to 1893, it was not inaugurated until 1905, long after Kaftanzoglou’s death.
In 1869, the City decided to build Agios Constantinos and Eleni to commemorate the 1868 birth of Crown Prince Constantine, quite a civic gesture! Kaftanzoglou’s own aesthetic vision is most fully realized here, particularly the façade with its Corinthian columns and pediments. The church covers an area of 1000 square meters and is 32 metres in height from floor to dome. It was damaged in the earthquakes of 1981 and 1999 and made fully safe again only in 2013.
As an interesting footnote, Agios Constantinos and Eleni now faces the much more visited neoclassical gem that is The National Theatre of Greece, designed and built by Ernst Ziller between 1895 and 1901. Luckily, Kaftanzoglou did not live to see that.
Ziller’s theatre
A Summing Up
Was Kaftanzoglou too rigid? Certainly his purist streak did not allow for innovation or argument. Many of the elements of the Averoff building are the same as those in Agia Irini twenty or so years earlier. Like Mr Collins in Pride and Prejudice, he may have wondered what possible benefit there could be in alteration.
His 1839 plan proposed a total separation between the old and new town suggests a certain lack of understanding of how the city could work for those already living there. Eradicating two thousand years of Greek attitudes which were also embedded in the design of Athens over those centuries, is not quite as easy as tearing down a Frankish tower on the Acropolis.
I wonder if there was ever any kind of backlash to all of this neoclassical ‘civilising’? One visitor did note that although Athenian houses had skin deep Neoclassical facades they had ‘indigenous backs’! It may have been meant as an insult but I rather like the surprising behinds of many buildings that seem so severe and uncompromisingly neoclassical - until you enter their balconied and less rigidly structured courtyards or backyards.
Kaftanzoglou’s aesthetic seems to have worked well with public buildings but it has to be noted that his wealthy admirers and supporters preferred to use more flamboyant and eclectic architects like Kleanthes, Ziller, and later Anastasios Metaxas when it came to building their own homes.
Still, neoclassicism in one form or another reigned until well into the twentieth century when it began to meet serious aesthetic opposition in an era of new technologies, new materials, and new ideas about what Athens should become.
His Grave
Section Four, Number 336
The Map
Footnotes
(1) See: Monumentality and its Shadows: A Quest for Modern Greek Architectural Discourse in Nineteenth-Century Athens (1834-1862) by Irene Fatsea (https://core.ac.uk/download/4430654.pdf) p. 217
(2)Even before Othon’s arrival, Greek governor Ioannis Capodistria had ordained a severe version of it because of its simplicity, functionality and its radical departure from Ottoman architecture which he regarded as a symbol of backwardness and tyranny. Wooden balconies, enclosed wooden porches, and huge overhanging eaves were out; severe symmetrical, facades were in.
(3) This law was mean to placate the inhabitants of ‘old Greece’ over the wealthier Greeks and foreigners who had flooded the country after 1830. It was not always observed to the letter but it did give Kaftanzoglou the entrée he needed.
(4) The history and inspiration of both the neoclassical and Greek revival movements started with archaeology, first in Italy and then in Greece. The term Greek Revival was first used by architecture professor Charles Robert Cockerell (1788-1863) in a lecture he gave at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1842. Greek revival buildings are basically imitations of ancient temples, incorporating to one degree or another their symmetry and gravitas with the use of ancient styled columns, porticos, low pitched gable roofs and entablatures (cornice, frieze, and architrave). In Greece it was an architectural extension of the neoclassical style. The Greek revival style was chosen for the University, the National Library, and the Greek Academy. There is a rotunda on its eastern façade, the university’s ceremonial hall where I once had the pleasure of seeing the Apology of Socrates. It would be hard to imagine a more evocative setting unless it was the original.
(5)Agia Irini functioned as Athens’ Metropolitan church from the time of its inauguration until 1862. It replaced a much loved earlier Agia Irini that had been damaged during the war of Independence and which, in its ruined and patched up state, had still managed to host the coronation of King Othon, his coming of age ceremony in 1835 and the funeral of Theodoros Kolokotronis in 1843. Agia Irini has a special place in the history of 19th century Athens. It was declared a monument of special interest by the Ministry of Culture in 1972.
Sources:
https://www.google.gr/books/edition/Greece/9kNHAgAAQBAJ?hl=el&gbpv=1&dq=Lysandros+Kaftanzoglou&pg From Greece, Modern Architectures in History
Monumentality and its Shadows: A Quest for Modern Greek Architectural Discourse in Nineteenth-Century Athens (1834-1862) by Irene Fatsea(https://core.ac.uk/download/4430654.pdf)
Neoclassical Architecture in Greece by Biris and Adami
Lysandros Kaftanzoglou ΛΥΣΑΝΔΡΟΣ ΚΑΥΤΑΝΖΟΓΛΟΥ
Born 1811 Died 1885
Section Four, Number 336
In an era of advancing nationalism, Kaftanzoglou set himself (with)in the effort to promote a purist national identity for the country, based on ancient prototypes.(1)
Lysandros Kaftanzoglou came to Greece as a young architect just as Athens, under the aegis of King Othon and his father King Ludwig 1 of Bavaria, was undergoing rapid reconstruction and development in an all out effort to turn itself into an enviable capital city and one that would embody, in stone and mortar, the ideals and aspirations of the new nation.
After a false start in 1839 followed by a lucky break in 1844, Kaftanzoglou became an architectural star in an era of emerging architectural superstars. It was not so much his work as his influence on the students he taught as chancellor of the National Technical University of Athens between 1844 and 1862. He was an avid proponent of a pure classical style in an era when the issue of just ‘how classical’ neoclassical should be was hotly debated. Theories about how to embody the soul of the nation were complicated, sometimes contradictory, and often downright rancorous.
Neoclassicism and the New State
That neoclassical architecture would be the default style for the new city was never in dispute. The choice was not merely to follow established European trends; it was intended to inculcate a sense of patriotic nationalism in the new citizens by connecting the country’s modern architecture directly to Greece’s glorious past. (2)
From the beginning, the architecture of Athens functioned within a strict institutional framework: By 1836 all construction was under the aegis of the Ministry of the Interior whose Architectural Department would vet each and every design. This goes a long way to explaining how Athenian avenues came to be crowded with homogeneous neoclassical mansions and why so many of Athens monumental public buildings would not have been out of place in the Athens of Pericles. Adopting an architectural style that was considered at the time to be modern and liberal as well as one reflecting the country’s past was a win-win option for Greece.
His Life
Lysandros was born in Thessaloniki in 1811. His father was Merkourios Kaftanzoglou and his mother a Frenchwoman, Francoise (Fani) Tavernier. The family was not an insignificant one in Ottoman Thessaloniki. Merkourios’ father Ioannis Kaftanzoglou was an elder, one of the Greeks in charge of promoting the Greek community’s interests under Ottoman domination, as well as ensuring their compliance. Thessaloniki was the Ottoman’s second most important city and in the early 1800s was an important trading centre.
Ottoman Thessaloniki
Merkourios died in 1818. The family’s situation became precarious after the Greek revolution broke out because Ioannis Kaftanzoglou had been a fervent supporter of the cause. To avoid Ottoman reprisals, Francoise took her sons to live in Marseilles. Lysandros went on to study architecture at the prestigious San Luca Academy in Rome where he graduated with distinction. It was not at all certain that he would return to Greece which had been declared a state in the London Protocol of 1830. His own home town was not part of the new nation. Furthermore, he was receiving a gratifying amount of praise and awards for his neoclassical designs in Europe before finally coming to Athens in 1838.
He must have been tempted by the frenzy of architectural activity that the declaration of Athens as Greece’s capital in 1834 had engendered. Athens had suddenly become the place for European architects, archaeologists, and artists to visit, study, record, and, for some, to draw up plans to make their own mark on the tabula rasa that was the emerging city. Stamatis Kleanthes, (a fellow Greek from north of the new state’s borders) and his partner Eduard Schaubert had preceded him by several years and had already produced a city plan whose outlines can still be seen in the city centre. By the time Kaftanzoglou arrived, Athens was awash with city planners, architects and engineers, and a good many of them were foreigners who were monopolizing the purse strings of king Othon and his father King Ludwig.
Lysandros did meet the king and, in 1839, in an exhibition held inside the Thisseon at the foot of the Acropolis, he presented his own austere town plan, meant to counter the romantic garden city north of the acropolis envisioned by Kleanthes and Schaubert. He proposed a modern grid system to the east and north-east of the acropolis and a total separation between new development and what was left of the rabbit warren of streets in the old city (today’s Plaka and Psyrri).
He did not manage to break into the magic circle of those favoured with commissions and instead went on to greener pastures in Constantinople. He might never have returned but, in 1844, local anger in Greece at civil service jobs going to foreigners came to a head and a constitutional change swept all foreigners out of the civil service. (3) This left openings for Greek professionals like Kaftanzoglou. Apparently Othon had noticed him in 1839. The king invited him to become the first Greek to head the Royal School of Arts (today’s Polytechnic), a post that he would hold for the next eighteen years. He was 33 years old.
His Tenure at the Polytechnical University
Under his Aegis, the school grew and prospered. It is interesting that, as a trained architect himself, he did not immediately institute a Department of Architecture. His reasons were aesthetic. He believed that architecture was not a separate discipline from the fine arts. In fact, Kaftanzoglou encouraged the subjugation of the applied arts to the fine arts. Looking back, it seems an odd perspective given his own education. When questioned, he would respond that Greece was not yet ready. Some of his detractors (and there were quite a few) suggested that he just wanted to keep architectural commissions for himself. The result was the delayed emergence of home grown Greek architects but wonderful encouragement for the painters and sculptors who attended the school.
His position as chancellor opened up many opportunities such as membership in the influential Greek archaeological society, his participation in the committee for a national Archaeological Museum and many other posts. His aesthetic and practical views became ones to be reckoned with.
As a member of the Archaeological Society, Kaftanzoglou defended the stripping of the acropolis of all medieval structures like the Frankish Tower which at one point he called ‘Turkish’. There were some people at the time who did not think everything after Pericles should be obliterated. He countered with the argument that Greece had no obligation to preserve a ‘barbarous monument’. Only what was the ‘classical’ reflected the true nature of the Greek people and that this was the mirror that state should be holding up.
It was not demolished until 1875. Heinrich Schliemann footed the bill.
As a classical purist, Kaftanzoglou was at odds with Stamatis Kleanthes’ tendency to romantic touches and, towards the end of his life, looked upon my hero, architect Ernst Ziller, with an equally jaundiced eye. He believed that he had found the perfect model for Athens and was offended by deviations. It must have rankled that the design of the neoclassical triumphs of the Library, the University, and The Academy on Panepistimiou Street, so emblematic of his aesthetic, had been designed by the Hansen brothers. Apparently he did have a hand in altering some of the University during its erection, but still…
Kaftanzoglou resigned his post at the Polytechnical school when his mentor King Otto was deposed in 1862. But he continued working until his death in October 1885.
His Work
Kaftanzoglou’s two triumphs were the Arsakeion and the Averoff Building in the Athens Polytechnical complex. He also built many neoclassical churches. They still impress, but may not stop you in your tracks with the possible exception of Agios Constantinos and Eleni near Plateia Omonia.
The Arsakeion
Panepistimiou Street, Number 47-9 (on the corner of Panepistimiou and Pesmazoglou Streets)
Constructed between 1846 and 1852
The entrance today
Apostolos Arsakis (1789 – 1869), a wealthy Romanian Greek donated 600,000 drachmas for the establishment of female education institutes in Athens. In gratitude, this building was named after him. Experts claim that Kaftanzoglou’s design is the most authentic example of ‘Hellenised’ neoclassicism still standing in the city. It is an austere, harmonious building with an impressive marble entrance flanked by two Doric columns. Its severe central core is mitigated by projecting wings and its upper story is softened by a row of Ionic half columns. Kaftanzoglou had stolen this commission out from under Stamatis Kleanthes who had first been invited to submit a design. A very public and rancorous disagreement between the two architects ensued.
Kaftanzoglou won. When it came to the erection of public buildings, Kaftanzoglou had the edge. Kleanthes went on to build more stylishly eccentric buildings for private clients like the Duchess of Plaisance.
The ground floor of the Arsakeion was converted into shops in the 1930s but was returned to its original splendour by architect Alexandros Kalligas. It now houses the Greek Council of State.
The Averoff Building, now part of the National Metsovian Technical University of Athens on Patission Street
Constructed Between 1862 and 1876
Scene of the famous November 17, 1973 uprising of students against the military junta, the Athens Polytechnical University is better known for this today than for its architecture. Sadly it is often covered in graffiti, something that would have horrified its creator.
In her book, Neoclassical Architecture in Greece, Adami describes it as ‘a classical sculptural composition strictly organized around its axis of symmetry.’ Two identical ground floor structures flank the main entrance. This building is self-contained, elegant in its simplicity, and monumental in the best sense of the word.
It is no accident that its elevated central portico resembles the Erectheion on the acropolis. Kaftanzoglou had had a hand in its excavation and it was certainly on his mind when he designed this building. Its portico has pure white Ionic columns topped by the impeccable order of the entablature. Its loggias and open spaces suit the attic climate just as did its prototype. (4)
The building was renovated in 2021 and houses the School of Architecture.
Kaftanzoglou’s Three Aisled Basilicas
The churches are all neoclassical three aisled basilicas of varying levels of grandeur. Each displays degrees of what experts term ancient Greek, Romanesque, and Byzantine influences, a mix possibly depending to some degree upon their donors’ wishes. Certainly they all reflect nineteenth century bourgeois optimism. Built for large congregations, they often took years to complete because of funding problems. All are in stark contrast to those bijoux byzantine churches still standing in the city centre.
The Church of Agios Andreas in Patras, built between 1836 and 1845.
Agia Irini at number 36 Αιόλου Street, Athens
Commissioned in 1846 and built between 1847 and 1850
Tucked away among so many other buildings, it is hard to grasp the sheer volume of this church. The view of the north façade below gives an idea of its size and its ‘clear intersecting volumes’. (5)
Agios Georgios Karytsis in Plateia Karytsis just behind the National History Museum on Stadiou Street. Built between 1846 and 1850, it is noted for its monumental marble entrance topped by a white belfry.
The Catholic Cathedral of Saint Dionysius, Panepistimiou & 9 Omirou, built between 1858 and 1865
The cathedral was originally designed by German architect Leo Von Klenze. Kaftanzoglou was invited in 1858 to modify the design. He did this by proposing a scaled down version of the original design and less ornamentation, especially on the west façade’s arcaded porch.
Agios Constantinos and Eleni near Omonia Square (Number 48 on the street named after the church). Designed in 1869, and constructed from 1870-72 to 1893, it was not inaugurated until 1905, long after Kaftanzoglou’s death.
In 1869, the City decided to build Agios Constantinos and Eleni to commemorate the 1868 birth of Crown Prince Constantine, quite a civic gesture! Kaftanzoglou’s own aesthetic vision is most fully realized here, particularly the façade with its Corinthian columns and pediments. The church covers an area of 1000 square meters and is 32 metres in height from floor to dome. It was damaged in the earthquakes of 1981 and 1999 and made fully safe again only in 2013.
As an interesting footnote, Agios Constantinos and Eleni now faces the much more visited neoclassical gem that is The National Theatre of Greece, designed and built by Ernst Ziller between 1895 and 1901. Luckily, Kaftanzoglou did not live to see that.
Ziller’s theatre
A Summing Up
Was Kaftanzoglou too rigid? Certainly his purist streak did not allow for innovation or argument. Many of the elements of the Averoff building are the same as those in Agia Irini twenty or so years earlier. Like Mr Collins in Pride and Prejudice, he may have wondered what possible benefit there could be in alteration.
His 1839 plan proposed a total separation between the old and new town suggests a certain lack of understanding of how the city could work for those already living there. Eradicating two thousand years of Greek attitudes which were also embedded in the design of Athens over those centuries, is not quite as easy as tearing down a Frankish tower on the Acropolis.
I wonder if there was ever any kind of backlash to all of this neoclassical ‘civilising’? One visitor did note that although Athenian houses had skin deep Neoclassical facades they had ‘indigenous backs’! It may have been meant as an insult but I rather like the surprising behinds of many buildings that seem so severe and uncompromisingly neoclassical - until you enter their balconied and less rigidly structured courtyards or backyards.
Kaftanzoglou’s aesthetic seems to have worked well with public buildings but it has to be noted that his wealthy admirers and supporters preferred to use more flamboyant and eclectic architects like Kleanthes, Ziller, and later Anastasios Metaxas when it came to building their own homes.
Still, neoclassicism in one form or another reigned until well into the twentieth century when it began to meet serious aesthetic opposition in an era of new technologies, new materials, and new ideas about what Athens should become.
His Grave
Section Four, Number 336
The Map
Footnotes
(1) See: Monumentality and its Shadows: A Quest for Modern Greek Architectural Discourse in Nineteenth-Century Athens (1834-1862) by Irene Fatsea (https://core.ac.uk/download/4430654.pdf) p. 217
(2)Even before Othon’s arrival, Greek governor Ioannis Capodistria had ordained a severe version of it because of its simplicity, functionality and its radical departure from Ottoman architecture which he regarded as a symbol of backwardness and tyranny. Wooden balconies, enclosed wooden porches, and huge overhanging eaves were out; severe symmetrical, facades were in.
(3) This law was mean to placate the inhabitants of ‘old Greece’ over the wealthier Greeks and foreigners who had flooded the country after 1830. It was not always observed to the letter but it did give Kaftanzoglou the entrée he needed.
(4) The history and inspiration of both the neoclassical and Greek revival movements started with archaeology, first in Italy and then in Greece. The term Greek Revival was first used by architecture professor Charles Robert Cockerell (1788-1863) in a lecture he gave at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1842. Greek revival buildings are basically imitations of ancient temples, incorporating to one degree or another their symmetry and gravitas with the use of ancient styled columns, porticos, low pitched gable roofs and entablatures (cornice, frieze, and architrave). In Greece it was an architectural extension of the neoclassical style. The Greek revival style was chosen for the University, the National Library, and the Greek Academy. There is a rotunda on its eastern façade, the university’s ceremonial hall where I once had the pleasure of seeing the Apology of Socrates. It would be hard to imagine a more evocative setting unless it was the original.
(5)Agia Irini functioned as Athens’ Metropolitan church from the time of its inauguration until 1862. It replaced a much loved earlier Agia Irini that had been damaged during the war of Independence and which, in its ruined and patched up state, had still managed to host the coronation of King Othon, his coming of age ceremony in 1835 and the funeral of Theodoros Kolokotronis in 1843. Agia Irini has a special place in the history of 19th century Athens. It was declared a monument of special interest by the Ministry of Culture in 1972.
Sources:
https://www.google.gr/books/edition/Greece/9kNHAgAAQBAJ?hl=el&gbpv=1&dq=Lysandros+Kaftanzoglou&pg From Greece, Modern Architectures in History
Monumentality and its Shadows: A Quest for Modern Greek Architectural Discourse in Nineteenth-Century Athens (1834-1862) by Irene Fatsea(https://core.ac.uk/download/4430654.pdf)
Neoclassical Architecture in Greece by Biris and Adami
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