How come there are no skyscrapers in Athens?

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the groud is to weak to hold the weight the same in paris hey paris is greek word :)

asimenia

Actually I think you'll find that buildings are only allowed to a certain height. This changes in areas.
Here in Preveza they are not allowed to build higher than 4 floors or certain places 5

Vaggos.Gr

Believe me, Athens is better without them !

I hope they will never build skyscrapers in Athens , because they will aggravate the city.

Besides, i don't think that it's something beautiful.
In my opinion , they make a city a very chaotic place, Athens don't need them.

European countries have many beautiful historical buildings and we must focus on them and not to build very tall and charmless buildings.

In some countries, people maybe think that skyscrapers show their country more rich and more powerful.
But in my opinion more ugly !

chrisvoulg1

But they are! Just look to buildig which houses t the headquarters of Mr Kokalis' companies, or the headquartres of OTE...

Airpole

There are very few high rise buddings in Athens and that is on account that the land available for such developments is scarce.
One more aspect against sky scrapers is the fact that additional measures must be taken against the "seismogenic" ground, which will increase the cost of building.

Besides, the already high rise buildings were more than usual criticized for the space they had taken on the Athenian skyline. And that was mostly negative criticism.

Antioch

Because the Greeks are smart!

marianne

They just don't need to impress others with skyscrapers. Small buildings look much nicer, more "human"!

sofisintown

There are a lot of earthquakes in Greece, it is located in the middle of a bunch of tectonic ridges.
It's not a good idea to have tall buildings swaying left and right when the earthquake starts.
There are a few taller buildings, about 20-22 floors high, and these are build on amortizators (like the shocks the cars have), which absorb much of the shaking in case of a tremblor.

Totally Blunt

It is better that you don't have them. Istanbul's own sillhouette is ridden with them and they are UGLY! This is Istanbul, not New York!

Not to mention their negative effect on traffic.

argr3

I am pretty sure that up until a few years ago, there was a legal limit to the number of floors a building could be. You would find most blocks of apartments reaching about 5-6 floors.

I remember hearing from someone years ago that one of the reasons for the limit was to do with the old Athens airport at Ellinikon, and that around the airport and city, there had to be a limit to the height of the buildings. I remember in my old house, years ago, there was always a Pan-Am jumbo that took off in the afternoon, and it took ages before it reached a safe height. I could tell straight away that it was this plane, as all the windows in my house used to shake.

However, I really think that Athens can do without any skyscrapers or tall buildings. There are enough cities around the world with skyscrapers, that I don't think that they will add anything but a negative impact to the Athens skyline.

There are some with 10 or more floors, but in some years will be bigger, and more.

Frank B

It has probably nothing to do with the seismogenic land of Athens (Tokyo has plenty of them and it has more earthquakes than any other city in the world).

It has probably nothing to do with any construction regulations either. Regulations in the most unregulated European city in terms of construction and building is "kinda" funny...

I guess it has mainly to do with the modern history of this city and it's traditionally small economy.

Athens was build in the 50s by low/middle class income people that were selling their land or old house in exchange for a flat. Having a bathroom was a luxury back then. It was cheaper to build a low cost, low rise building and sell cheap flats to masses than building skyscrapers where flats would be simply not affordable.

2. The economy of this country was running traditionally around the public sector (60%-40%) preventing any major companies or business schemes or investments to flourish.

Today the situation has changed. But the land is too expensive. Yet, judging from other European countries, we are probably going to see few skyscrapers rising in the future.
I am not sure whether this is a good or a bad thing. For instance, having the whole government and its ministries in a single building would save time and money and perhaps would also save some space.

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