Written with George Papam, originally published on Icon
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As the last plane departed from Athens’ Elliniko International Airport in 2001, it began decades of uncertainty for the future of the coastal site at the city’s southern edge. Unable to serve the increasing air passenger traffic of the time and with the 2004 Olympics forthcoming, the airport had to move. It left behind an open terrain, giving rise to the vision for a large metropolitan park – a vision that was already on the table from the mid-1990s.
Through the 2000s, several other proposals for the redevelopment were formulated, with different approaches to a central idea: that if any commercial projects on the site were necessary, they should be used as funding mechanisms to support the proposed park. However, as the economic crisis took off in 2009, priorities seemed to shift. The old airport lot suddenly appeared as a valuable asset; more of an opportunity to offset part of the Greek debt than a purely public resource…
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Written with George Papam, originally published on Icon
George Kafka 