At the end of the 19th century, Athens, the capital of the Modern Greek state since 1834, would complete its architectural and urban development, showcasing at the same time its unparalleled ancient monuments. It had become an attractive city with idyllic rural areas and remarkable public buildings, erected thanks to the generosity of the Diaspora Greeks, a city capable of hosting, in 1896, the first Olympic Games of the modern era. This was the city the 19th century handed over to the 20th, an Athens with a population of 200,000, in whose limited boundaries stood buildings no higher than two-, three-storeys, surrounded by gardens and courtyards.
From the dawn of the 20th century until 1922, when the city reached a population of 500.000, Athens became the instigator and simultaneously the main recipient of the historic changes taking place in Greece. The two victorious Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, which almost doubled the territory of the Greek State, the state improvement projects undertaken by Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos, and the introduction of a multitude of innovations into the everyday life of its inhabitants would enable the city to draw near its European models. The optimistic climate of the second decade of the 20th century favored a systematic attempt to design the capital’s urban space. The cessation of the unfettered expansion of the city limits, the attempt to formulate an urban planning strategy for Athens and the 1919 ordinance that facilitated the erection of multi-storied apartment buildings were characteristic expressions of a political will aspiring towards a Western style of urbanization.
The eighteen years that separated the 1922 Asia Minor Disaster from World War II comprised one of the most shattering and contradictory periods of the history of Athens. The city saw its population increase by 145,5% to reach, in 1940, a total of 1.124.109 inhabitants. The need to confront the very acute problem of housing not only 230,000 Greek refugees from Asia Minor, but also rural migrants as well as immigrants, put an end, to all extents and purposes, to the grand urban plans of the second decade of the 20th century. In spite of the state’s substantial achievement in organizing refugee and inexpensive housing, illegal construction outside the city zoning boundaries provided a solution to the pressing needs of a large portion of less prosperous migrants. Housing construction for the middle and upper classes was assumed by the private sector. In the central neighborhoods of Athens a specific type of urban apartment building became standard and the singular financing method of giving up one’s property to contractors in exchange for one or more apartments in the building (antiparochi system) was introduced. At the same time, the British "garden city" found fertile ground in the northern and southern suburbs of Athens: Psychico, Filothei, Nea Smyrni, Palaio Faliro, etc. It was precisely during those same years that a series of infrastructure and urban development projects -improvements in transportation, an increase in the number of squares and green areas, etc.- enhanced the quality of life of Athens’ inhabitants and visitors.
The shadow of the harsh experiences of the Nazi occupation (1941–44) and the tragedy of the Civil War (1946–49) that lay over Athens significantly delayed the beginning of the postwar period. This deviation in both its urban development and architectural course from that of the other cities of Europe increased during the period 1950–80. This was mainly due to the city’s population explosion of 220% and the limited regulatory authority exercised by the state. Athens was rebuilt through the auspices of the private sector using the antiparochi system. Neighborhoods were flooded with apartment buildings and the historic city center was destroyed. With no official city plan in existence, illegal construction expanded the city.
The demographic stability achieved during the ‘80s and 90s, as well as certain fortuitous coincidences would significantly alter the situation. A positive development, corresponding to international trends, was the restoration of the historic city center, urban renewal, and the restoration and utilization of historic buildings. However, on the debit side, the mass exodus of approximately 3.000.000 Athenians, who suffering from air pollution, abandoned the declining central neighborhoods for the outskirts of the city and the coastal areas, would aggravate the anarchic urban development and the environmental decline of the Athens basin.

The dawn of the 21st century finds Athens in the midst of preparing for the 2004 Olympic Games. A development plan of ninety-six renovation and restoration projects, in conjunction with other infrastructure and greening projects, aspires to change the face of Attica.
This effort primarily aims to ameliorate the quality of life of the inhabitants and visitors of the urban area of Athens. At the same time, the promotion of the inventive idea of a Cultural Olympiad, seeks to upgrade the cultural level of the capital.