Author(s)

B. Ioannou & K. Serraos

Abstract

This paper investigates the basic parameters that affect the transformation of urban forms, focusing on the elements that define the image of the contemporary Greek city. A first important group of such parameters is connected to the endogenous dynamic of the socio-economic content of the Greek cities. It is true that the mixture of gradually added layers, or piles, of the urban fabric, keeps a differentiation or diversity to an extent in an internal aspect, but also, compared to the typical sense of \“European city image”, as well. A second group of parameters is connected to the recent trends and inflows from the European and international reality, which are considered to lead to a certain homogenization of the urban landscape. A main aim of the present work is to investigate this trend on the Greek paradigm. This paper adopts a case studies’ approach, organized in two stages: Initially the motives and effects which have shaped the Greek urban landscape during the past decades are described and then, in a second phase, there several recent parameters are initiated which lead to visual inputs and newer structures of the urban fabric. Finally an estimation of the size and the quality of the existing Greek fabrics’ alteration is attempted. Keywords: urban fabric, urban landscape, Greek city, urban transformation, globalization, regionalism. 1 Pre-existing structures in the Greek urban space 1.1 Urban evolution The basic period of the intense urbanization in Greece is located between 1950 and 1980, where the largest part of the currently functioning fabric was

Keywords

urban fabric, urban landscape, Greek city, urban transformation, globalization, regionalism.