Galleria Shopping Centre

21 I. Metaxa St, Glyfada, 1980-83

Architect
Ioannis Vikelas (1931-)



The late modern Galleria Shopping Centre was one of the first department stores in Attica to imitate successfully the glass architecture of Cesar Pelli that was then in vogue. It was built in the centre of the seaside suburb of Glyfada, home of many foreigners and particularly Americans.
The three-storey building is a work by Ioannis Vikelas, one of the most commercially successful architects of the 1980s. It houses shops on all floors around a central atrium. The atrium is the core of the building, in which vertical circulation takes place on escalators and elevators. The parking and auxiliary areas are in the basement.
The building’s elevations are covered by a glass curtain. The emphasis on the entrance, with the cubist interruption of the volumes and the treatment of the internal volumes of the atrium and the other features, are designed to attract shoppers.

TRANSPORTATION