Fix Brewery

Syngrou Ave and Frantzi St, Athens, 1957-59/63

Architects
Takis Ch. Zenetos (1926-1977)
Margaritis Apostolidis (1922-)



The modern façades of the Fix brewery plant that resulted after the radical rebuilding of the old factory were acknowledged by foreign and Greek critics as one of the most important International Style buildings in Athens in the 1950s. The enormous size of this industrial building – ground plus six floors covering a city block – and its central position provided Takis Zenetos with a rich source of speculation on many levels. The main ideas of the conversion were to ensure the internal flexibility of the factory so that it would be able to change use in the future, and its intervention in the anarchic urban fabric of Athens in a modernising spirit.
The dynamic volume of the factory imposed itself on the urban landscape. In the treatment of the façades, which was based on harmonious strong lines, the solid prevails and the horizontal dimension is emphasised. The plain, modern style of the Fix factory arose from the system of vertical and horizontal axes on the elevation walls, which sometimes contained openings for lighting and ventilation of the interiors and at others, fixed panels.
Today the building designed by Zenetos and Apostolidis has been mutilated by having its front section demolished. What remains is now being used as an exhibition centre for contemporary art.

TRANSPORTATION