The Mavromatis Apartment Building

Ploutarchou & Ypsilantou Sts, Athens, 1933

Architect
Konstantinos Kyriakidis (1881-1941)



The Mavromatis apartment building is in the downtown district of Kolonaki and constitutes one of the most impressive examples of modernised eclecticism to be built in interwar Athens. It was designed by the architect Konstantinos Kyriakidis, graduate of the Imperial School of Fine Arts in Constantinople (1900) with further training at the École Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris. Kyriakidis received a cosmopolitan education, grew to manhood and made a career in his birthplace, Constantinople, from 1900 to 1926.
The middle-class Mavromatis building has three apartments per floor, and a characteristic axial positioning of the entrance. The elevations are divided into base, trunk and crown. The base, which corresponds to the semi-basement and ground floor, is separated from the main body of the building by an extension of the continuous balcony and the bay windows, and the crown is marked by a cornice. The organisation of the façades is symmetrical with the vertical dimension emphasised by bay windows which, on the elevations, extend up to the flat roof. The corners are canted with a curve. The building also has elegant decorative details with Art Déco features.

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