Central vehicle yard for the Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation (OTE)

Doiranis, Agnostou Stratiotou & Sokratous, Kallithea, Attica, 1971-1975

Architects
Nikos Dessylas (1926-)
Dimitris Kontargyris (1934-)
Antonis Lambakis (1933-1990)
Pavlos Loukakis (1933-)



The Central Vehicle Yard of the Hellenic Telecommunications Organisation is one of the rare prestige public buildings erected after 1967 that was the product of compositional and stylistic mastery. The study was awarded to the four architects after they had won first design award in an open architectural competition. The building houses a multi-storeyed vehicle yard on the ground floor, the two upper floors and the flat roof, a vehicle repair shop with independent access on the ground floor, office and auxiliary areas. The characteristic features of the composition are the spiral ramps on the building’s two corners for the entrance and exit of vehicles. These ramps were cantilevered from cylindrical cores.
The façades are treated as single surfaces of bare concrete with horizontal rows of thin linear openings. The dynamism of the cylindrical ramps is contrasted with the plain main volume, lending the building a special plastic interest.

TRANSPORTATION