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Architecture and urban planning


Since the establishment of Greece as an independent state in the 1830s a 'new Greek architectural style' never materialised, since most monumental buildings in the country were designed by foreign architects, while Greek architects failed to establish a new national style that was distinctly Greek. Under the Second Republic, and like the rest of Europe during the same time period, Greek architecture was dominated by traditional styles such as neoclassicism and the Art Deco movement, while modernist architecture began to enter the mainstream through movements such as the Bauhaus, functionalism, and the International Style. Bauhaus was especially influential in the design of the thousands of Greek schools built under the Second Republic. In the same period, the question of the "Greekness" of the new modernist styles emerged out of the dichotomy of "Greek Architectural Tradition vs International Modern Architecture". This debate continued, sometimes aggressively, even after the eventual dominance of modernist architecture in Greece in the 50s and 60s. The interwar period also saw reinforced concrete become a mainstream construction method, known by its French name of (Μπετόν Αρμέ) on account of its promotion by the French architect Ernest Hébrard, even in works of a traditional style such as the building of the Bank of Greece/National Bank of Greece in Thessaloniki.

The fourth annual conference of the International Congress of Modern Architecture (CIAM) was held in Athens in 1933 on the topic of, and Le Corbusier published the Athens Charter as a result. This was hugely influential on post-war urban planning. Early Greek proponents of modernism active in the Second Republic included Ioannis Despotopoulos, the only Greek to have studied at the Bauhaus school under Walter Gropius, Dimitris Pikionis, and Patroklos Karantinos. Nevertheless, modernist architecture would not become a dominant force in the Greek architectural scene until after the second world war.

The gallery bellow illustrates the variety in the architecture produced under the Second Republic.

Airways


Because of its geostrategic advantage on the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa, Greece was an important stopover on numerous airline routes between those continents as well as Australia. It was connected via aeroplane to all major European urban centres on a frequent basis. There were 8 airports in the country in 1935, and some 19,553 passengers, 414501 kg of airmail, and 370036 kg of air cargo travelled through Greece by air in the same year. The twice-weekly LondonAthensBritish Raj route was the most popular with 4,695 passengers, followed by the AthensThessaloniki route (3,138 passengers), and AthensIoannina (3,092). The LondonAthensBritish Raj route also accounted for 71.5% of all airmail and 27.0% of all air cargo. Athens had connections to Thessaloniki, Ioannina, Brindisi, Istanbul, Rhodes, Marseille, French Indochina, London, the British Raj, Amsterdam, and the Dutch East Indies, while Thessaloniki had connections to Athens, Drama, Rome, Sofia, Belgrade, and Gdańsk. Overall, 2 domestic and 16 foreign regular air routes were flown out of Athens and Thessaloniki in 1931, operated by the following airlines:


 * Aero Espresso Italiana
 * Aeroput
 * Air Orient (Air France)
 * CIDNA (Air France)
 * Deutsche Luft Hansa
 * Hellenic Aerial Communications Co.
 * 🇬🇧 Imperial Airways
 * 🇳🇱 KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
 * LOT Polish Airlines
 * Società Aerea Mediterranea

Railways
A far more common means of transport in Greece at the time of the Second Republic were the railways, and though there was a system of railways connecting the major urban centres of the country, the Greek railway network was not as developed as that of other European states and was one of the smallest on the continent even when compared to those of other Balkan states such as Bulgaria or Yugoslavia. This is partly explained because of the difficult and mountainous terrain of Greece, which also facilitated the growth of a large and vibrant shipping sector in the place of an extensive railway network, and partly by the lack of funds and resources in post-independence Greece. By 1932 the country had a railway network spanning 2672 km of tracks with an annual ridership of 7.7 million. Seven railway companies were active in the country that year, with only one making a profit. Large parts of the railway network were inherited when Macedonia and Western Thrace became part of Greece after the Balkan Wars and the First World War, having been constructed by the Chemins de fer Orientaux and the Compagnie du Chemin de Fer Ottoman Jonction Salonique-Constantinople in the 1890s. The Greek railway network was connected to Central Europe through Yugoslavia, and also had connections with Bulgaria and Turkey. Beginning in 1920 the famous Simplon Orient Express ran between Paris and Athens, with numerous stops in between.

Electoral system
The Greek electoral system was codified for the first time by Presidential Decree in 2012; prior to that date it was made up of various pieces of legislation passed at different times. The current system is called "reinforced proportionality" in Greece (ενισχυμένη αναλογική), and is a form of semi-proportional representation with a 50-seat majority bonus for the party that wins a plurality of the vote. There is also an electoral threshold of 3% which all parties and individuals need to pass on a national level before being awarded any seats. These provisions are aimed at helping the largest party secure an absolute majority of parliamentary seats (151 out of 300), enhancing governmental stability. The majority bonus of 50 seats was abolished in 2016, but will still be applied at the 2019 Greek legislative election because the new electoral law did not receive a supermajority in Parliament, and can thus not be enforced in the next election.

The 50-seat majority bonus system was used for the first time in the May 2012 election; it reserves 50 parliamentary seats for the party emerges as the largest by total votes cast on a national level. The remaining 250 seats are divided proportionally in parliamentary constituencies according to each party's total valid vote percentage; this is slightly higher than the raw percentage reported, as there is always a small number of invalidated or "blank" votes (usually less than 1%), as well as the percentage of smaller parties that fail to surpass the 3% threshold, all of which are disregarded for the purpose of seat allotment. The previous law (used in the 2009 legislative elections) was less favorable for the plurality party, as only 40 additional seats were reserved for them.

Articles 99 and 100 of the codified electoral law lay out the way in which parties are allocated seats in accordance with the percentage of votes they received in a legislative election. The introduction of the majority bonus makes seat allocation especially complex, but the steps followed for the allocation of seats are as follows:


 * The number of seats a party is entitled to is first determined by dividing the total number of valid votes cast for parties which have surpassed the 3% national threshold and dividing it by 250 (99§2); this is later used to 'correct' the proportional results in the constituencies, ensuring that 50 seats always remain empty for the majority bonus.
 * The 12 seats elected through national-wide party-list are awarded by first determining a quota by taking the total number of valid votes for parties which have surpassed the 3% electoral threshold on a national level and dividing it by 12 (100§1). The total number of valid votes cast for each party is then divided by the quota, and the sum is rounded down, disregarding decimals, to produce the number of seats the party is awarded (100§2), so that a sum of 5.6 for example awards 5 seats to that party. If any of the 12 seats left empty in this step, a seat is awarded to each party in descending order of leftover decimals until all seats have been allocated in this manner (100§3).
 * The 7 seats elected through first-past-the-post in single-seat constituencies are awarded to the party which has the most number of votes in each of the constituencies in question, provided that that party has surpassed the 3% electoral threshold on a national level (100§5).
 * The 231 seats elected proportionally in constituencies are awarded by first determining a quota by taking the total number of valid votes cast for all parties in the constituency, regardless of if they have surpassed the 3% electoral threshold on a national level, and dividing it by the total number of seats in the constituency (100§4). The total number of valid votes cast for each party is then divided by the quota, and the rounded down sum corresponds to the number of seats each party is awarded in that constituency (100§4), so that again a sum of 5.6 would be awarded 5 seats. Any party which is entitled to more seats than it had candidates on the ballot paper can only be awarded a number of seats equal to the number of candidates it fielded (100§5). Any leftover seats are then awarded by calculating the difference between the total number of seats a party has received on a national level so far and the seats a party is entitled to according to the first step (100§6). The same procedure is then followed on all constituencies except single-member ones (100§6), to determine which constituencies each party is over- or under-represented in. This sum is used to award one seat, in descending order of sums, to that party which has the highest leftover sum in each of the two-member and three-member constituencies until all seats have been awarded (100§7). If any party has been awarded more seats on a national level than it is entitled to, the extra seats are removed from three-member (or, if necessary, two-member) constituencies in which that party has the lowest leftover sums (100§7). If there are still empty seats, those constituencies are ranked in descending order by leftover sums of parties which have surpassed the 3% electoral threshold on a national level, and one seat is awarded in each constituency to the smallest party by total number of valid votes above the 3% threshold, until that party has been awarded the total number of seats it is entitled to according to the first step (100§8). If there are still seats available, the last step is followed again and seats awarded to each party in ascending order of valid votes received, until all seats have been awarded.
 * The 50 seats of the majority bonus elected in constituencies are awarded after the above steps have been completed, ensuring that 50 seats remain available for the largest party (99§3a). A coalition can also be awarded the 50 seats provided that the average percentage of votes for each party in the coalition is larger than the percentage of votes received by the largest party on a national level, and in that case it is the Supreme Civil and Criminal Court of Greece that decides on whether a coalition qualifies for the allocation of the 50 seats (99§3b).

A rather complicated set of rules deals with rounding decimal results up or down, and ensures that the smaller a constituency is, the more strictly proportional its parliamentary representation will be. Another set of rules apportions the 50 seat premium for the largest-tallying party among constituencies. Individual seats are apportioned by "cross of preference". Voters mark a cross next to the name of the candidate or candidates they prefer, the number of crosses varying from one to five depending on constituency size. Ballots with no crosses or more crosses than allowed, count for only the party but not the individual candidates.

Tallying is done manually in the presence of representatives of all contesting parties. Party tallying, which is easier, is done first so that returns may be announced quickly. Individual candidate tallying is done next and can take several days. Once the number of seats per party and constituency is determined, the seats are filled on a top-down basis from the individual cross-of-preference tallies. Party heads and acting or past Prime Ministers are exempt from cross-of-preference voting: they are automatically placed at the top of their party list and are elected, provided their party achieves at least one seat in the particular constituency.

By constitutional provision, the electoral law can be changed by simple parliamentary majority, but a law so changed comes into effect in the next-but-one election, unless a two-thirds parliamentary supermajority (200 or more votes) is achieved. Only in the latter case is the new electoral law effective at the next election. A case in point is the current electoral law, which was passed in 2007. Because this law was passed by a simple majority, it was not used for the subsequent 2009 election, but was then used in the 2012 election.

Definition of New Classical architecture
The definition of New Classicism is broad. The Oxford Dictionary of Architecture defines it as "the study of classical architecture, to recover a coherent of architecture, something jettisoned by the Modern Movement". It is a modern or contemporary movement in the sense that it is being practised in the modern world. The rise of New Classicism from the 1970s onward, an era marked by growing dissatisfaction with modern architecture, also makes it an expression of post-modern ideals; however, New Classicism is not part of the postmodern movement in architecture, which uses classical elements in an ironic way as a commentary on the perceived sterility of modernism. New Classicism as a design discipline can be manifested in both a highly conservative and highly innovative way, as indicated by the works of Quinlan Terry and Craig Hamilton respectively.

Architecture
The architectural landscape of Thessaloniki has been influenced by the variety of powers that have ruled it. In the historic city centre, the part of the city that was contained within the Walls of Thessaloniki until those were told down in the late 19th century, this is most evident. The city was first planned in the Hellenistic period using a Hippodamian grid plan in the 3rd century BC and this layout survived for 2,200 years; it was evident in the city plan of Ottoman Thessaloniki until the Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917, having survived the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman periods. Roman Thessaloniki's rise to prominence saw a number of important buildings being built, including a new Roman forum, an odeon, a bath complex, a triumphal arch, a hippodrome, a new set of defensive walls, a rotunda and mausoleum, and the largest Imperial palace built in the Roman Empire in a century. The Thessaloniki of the time is described as a city "of Imperial splendour".

It is during the Byzantine Empire that Thessaloniki began to be influential in terms of architecture rather than simply following trends developed elsewhere. Its various early Christian and medieval churches are described by UNESCO as having "a considerable impact first in the Byzantine and later the Serbian world" and as "a typological point of reference". With the rise of Christianity many churches began to be constructed both as new buildings, like St. Demetrius on the site of the Roman Baths (in the 3rd century), and as conversions, such as the Rotunda of Galerius, which was made into the Church of St. George. The city, still confied to its Walls at this time, had a population of up to 150,000 in the 14th century.

The fall of the city to the Ottoman Empire saw its gradual transition into a typical Ottoman town.

Architects that were active in this period include Vitaliano Poselli, Xenophon Paionidis, and Ernst Ziller, all of whom built mainly in the styles of eclectic neoclassicism and Art Nouveau. Immediately after being incorporated into Greece in 1913, the government appointed a commission to alter the urban fabric of the city and emphasise its Greek character, in effect sanctioned architectural propaganda. This never went through due to the start of the First World War, but aspects of this began to be implemented following the Fire.

The city layout changed after 1870, when the seaside fortifications gave way to extensive piers, and many of the oldest walls of the city were demolished, including those surrounding the White Tower, which today stands as the main landmark of the city. As parts of the early Byzantine walls were demolished, this allowed the city to expand east and west along the coast.



The expansion of Eleftherias Square towards the sea completed the new commercial hub of the city and at the time was considered one of the most vibrant squares of the city. As the city grew, workers moved to the western districts, because of their proximity to factories and industrial activities; while the middle and upper classes gradually moved from the city-center to the eastern suburbs, leaving mainly businesses. In 1917, a devastating fire swept through the city and burned uncontrollably for 32 hours. It destroyed the city's historic center and a large part of its architectural heritage, but paved the way for modern development and allowed Thessaloniki the development of a proper European city center, featuring wider diagonal avenues and monumental squares; which the city initially lacked – much of what was considered to be 'essential' in European architecture.

World Heritage sites


Because of Thessaloniki's importance during the early Christian and Byzantine periods, the city is host to several paleochristian monuments that have significantly contributed to the development of Byzantine art and architecture throughout the Byzantine Empire as well as Serbia. The evolution of Imperial Byzantine architecture and the prosperity of Thessaloniki go hand in hand, especially during the first years of the Empire, when the city continued to flourish. It was at that time that the Complex of Roman emperor Galerius was built, as well as the first church of Hagios Demetrios.

By the 8th century, the city had become an important administrative center of the Byzantine Empire, and handled much of the Empire's Balkan affairs. During that time, the city saw the creation of more notable Christian churches that are now UNESCO World Heritage Sites, such as Hagia Sophia of Thessaloniki, the Church of the Acheiropoietos, the Church of Panagia Chalkeon. When the Ottoman Empire took control of Thessaloniki in 1430, most of the city's churches were converted into mosques, but have survived to this day. Travelers such as Paul Lucas and Abdulmejid I document the city's wealth in Christian monuments during the years of the Ottoman control of the city.

The church of Hagios Demetrios was burnt down during the Great Thessaloniki Fire of 1917, as did many other of the city's monuments, but it was rebuilt. During World War II, the city was extensively bombed and as such many of Thessaloniki's paleochristian and Byzantine monuments were heavily damaged. Some of the sites were not restored until the 1980s. Thessaloniki has more UNESCO World Heritage Sites listed than any other city in Greece, a total of 15 monuments. They have been listed since 1988.

Urban renewal


With the 100th anniversary of the 1912 incorporation of Thessaloniki into Greece, the government announced a large-scale redevelopment program for the city of Thessaloniki, which aims in addressing the current environmental and spatial problems that the city faces. More specifically, the program will drastically change the physiognomy of the city by relocating the Thessaloniki International Exhibition Center and grounds of the Thessaloniki International Trade Fair outside the city centre and turning the current location into a large metropolitan park, redeveloping the coastal front of the city, relocating the city's numerous military camps and using the grounds and facilities to create large parklands and cultural centers; and the complete redevelopment of the harbor and the Lachanokipoi and Dendropotamos districts (behind and near the Port of Thessaloniki) into a commercial business district, with possible highrise developments.

The plan also envisions the creation of new wide avenues in the outskirts of the city and the creation of pedestrian-only zones in the city centre. Furthermore, the program includes plans to expand the jurisdiction of Seich Sou Forest National Park and the improvement of accessibility to and from the Old Town. The ministry has said that the project will take an estimated 15 years to be completed, in 2025.

Part of the plan has been implemented with extensive pedestrianization's within the city center by the municipality of Thessaloniki and the revitalization the eastern urban waterfront/promenade, Nea Paralia (Νέα Παραλία, literally new beach), with a modern and vibrant design. Its first section opened in 2008, having been awarded as the best public project in Greece of the last five years by the Hellenic Institute of Architecture.

The municipality of Thessaloniki's budget for the reconstruction of important areas of the city and the completion of the waterfront, opened in January 2014, was estimated at around 28.2 EUR million (US$39.9 million) for the year 2011 alone.