Passenger Terminal of the Piraeus Port Authority
Today the PPA Exhibition and Conference Centre

Ayios Nikolaos Wharf, Piraeus, 1981-86

Architects
Yannis Liapis (1922-1993)
Elias Scroumbelos (1921-)



The Passenger Terminal of the PPA was designed as the pre-eminent prestige building of Greece’s largest port. It was a prototype public building of its time, created in a brutalist spirit with technological innovations and symbolic claims reminiscent of the unconventional structures of Eero Saarinen and Le Corbusier.
The existing building was the only unit built of the architects’ preliminary design for a complex of terminals, customs’ offices, port authority and harbour works, which won first price in an open architectural competition.
There is a clear distinction of functions in the arrangement of spaces, which takes place on three levels. On the ground floor are the customs clearance areas for merchandise, on the first floor, which has a double height, are the passenger waiting rooms, shops and offices, and on the second floor are the restaurant and departure area. Today the building has become the PPA exhibition and convention centre.
The long, narrow PPA building has monumental dimensions: length 185 metres, width 51 m. But its most characteristic feature, stylistically and technologically advanced in 1960s Greece, is its upwardly curved roof slab, supported by tensile cables anchored to a series of central columns. The columns function symbolically alluding to the masts of sailing ships or the huge cranes in the port.
The materials used are bare concrete, metal frames and plastered brick walls. The aesthetic effect impresses experts with its dynamism and unconventionality.

TRANSPORTATION