there is no senior “New Athens” from the part between Omonia and Syntagma. The new city of Athens, stretching from the Old Palace and then the Parliament to the cafes, hotels and shops of Gautia and its environs, contained all the secrets of the city. City life was bustling. Around 1900, when the areas along the Patision after the Museum were still sparsely populated or undeveloped, the life of New Athens flowed from Amalia and the then Kifisios (later Vasilisis Sophia) to Naples, Exarchia, Metaxourgio.

You should have seen Drozini, Palamas and Xenopoulos in Naples or in Syntagma, in University or in Omonia. When there was a building orgasm under Charilaos Trikoupis, Athens accepted new standards. Paradoxically, large outbuildings were not so common until this time because the market was small and investment funds were limited. But even today we look at the great buildings of the Belle Epoque of Athens that are still standing, such as Schliemann-Mel Palacecorner of the University and Harilaou Trikoupiwhich is now entering a new era.

It was then, in the late 19th and early 20th century, that Athens acquired major commercial buildings such as the Pesmazoglou investment (Megaron Proyas at Panepistimiou 39 and the magnificent tenement house at the corner of Herodos Atticus and Kifisia streets). ), extensions of Arsakeon with shopping malls or Megaro Kupa, at the beginning of the University. OUR chillerwho was part of the urban transformation of Athens, with prominent clients of economic power, designed some of them, such as the Schliemann-Mell Mansion, for his friend and compatriot Errico Schliemann.

This largely commercial building from 1890 never received the full decorative finishes envisaged by Ziller’s plans. Neither towers, as in the new Arsaceon, nor decorative metopes and canisters were installed. But it was an impressive building in its scale. The resourceful Schliemann intended him to help his children, Andromache Schliemann-Mela (the wife of Leo Mel, who died young, like his older brother Pavlos) and Agamemnon (a more enterprising nature, the governor of Agia Larisa, who replaced the brother-in-law).

As you know, Ziller designed for Schliemann “Ilio Melatron” just above the university, the construction of which was completed in 1881 – the most brilliant private mansion in Athens. And they also collaborated with Schliemann in the construction of the German Archaeological Institute behind the Schliemann-Mel mansion, on Feidiou and Harilau Trikoupi streets. We will also add the archaeologist Wilhelm Dörpfeld to complete the German trinity of Athens. The Schliemann-Mell mansion borders on the rear side of the former residence of the Austrian ambassador Anton Prokes von Osten at Feidi 3, later known as the residence of the Hellenic Conservatory, with the personality of the pianist Lina von Lautner, another German from her Athena. When this oldest house belonged for some time to Andromachia Schliemann-Mell, Lina von Lautner placed the Lautner Odeon there around 1899.

When the Schliemann-Mella palace was built, a building of offices, apartments and shops of that time, a building that generates income, the National Library had not yet been built … The Germans of Athens in 1900 left a strong mark.