Much has been said since the recent announcement of plans to change the use of the premises that house the historic Ideal and Astor cinemas. One of the most likely reasons for the lockout is that movie theaters are not making a profit as many stay at home and watch movies from digital platforms. May be.

But not only buildings make up the cultural capital of the city, as it is perceived by its residents and then transferred to visitors. Aris Sapounakis, architect and urban planner, professor at the University of Thessaly, in his study “City Identity and Cultural Development” notes that “an element of ‘culture’ is introduced into the identity of a place by the current, but also by the earlier human societies that operated there, the forms that they created and create, organized or informal, and their relationship with the natural environment of the area, as they are perceived by residents and visitors.

The cultural identity of a place can be tangible—buildings, objects, and even the cultural landscape—or intangible, such as customs and traditions, etc. Note: The identity of a place is made up of the entire human-made environment, not just symbolic buildings.

So what does the modern identity of Athens consist of? What is this sign that can arouse the interest of the constantly renewing inhabitants of the pool and its visitors to study it?

Cultural events mobilize only a subset of art lovers following the different trends of each era from the Concert Hall, the Onassis Foundation and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation. But mostly they are artistic coloring. Thus, they cannot produce the material that mobilizes the Athenians for the necessary “unity” to create a new cultural ethos that feeds the modern political (after all, everything is politics) and social development of the capital. Is there a park that can attract Athenians on weekends? The open squares of the center of Athens seem closed, alien to the minds of many and degraded to the limits of the ghetto.

In addition, the stigma of entertainment in Athens, as it moves in line with commercial fashion trends, is almost non-existent. The city lives haphazardly, poorly structured, without reference to its inhabitants – a library, a municipal theater.

In terms of buildings, really, what can an Athenian look at and feel like a milestone in his own history in the city in which he lives? Chests of Apollo and Attikon, as well as Standing Books. Ideal and Astor leave, Zonar is elite. Kolonaki Square mourns past glory. Unity and the Constitution reinforce the Balkan identity more than the European one.

So, let’s stay in the Parthenon and admire it, hoping that someday an Athenian-driven generation will write a new, collective, modern story about the capital of Greece.