Kypseli ( el, Κυψέλη, ) is a neighbourhood in central

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...

. It occupies much of the 6th municipal department of the municipality of Athens, and has a population of around 50,000. Ντίνα Βαΐου
''Το αστικό τοπίο της πολυεθνικής Κυψέλης''
ina Vaiou, ''The urban landscape of multinational Kypseli''

Boundaries

The boundaries of Kypseli are set by

Patission Street Patission Street ( el, Οδός Πατησίων) is one of the major streets in central Athens, Greece. Though it is known as Patission, its name for its stretch between Panepistimiou Street and Amerikis Square, was changed to 28 October Stree ...

at the west, by

Tourkovounia The Tourkovounia ( el, Τουρκοβούνια), also known as Lykovounia (Λυκοβούνια, "wolf mountains") and in Antiquity called Anchesmos (), is a hill range in Athens, Attica. The name has also been transferred to a neighbourhood in Ce ...

hill at the east, by the Municipality of Galatsi at the north and by

Pedion Areos The Pedion tou Areos or Pedion Areos ( el, Πεδίον του Άρεως or Πεδίον Άρεως, , meaning ''Field of Ares'', corresponding to the French ''Champ de Mars'' and the ancient ''Campus Martius'') is one of the largest public parks ...

park at the south. Extensions of Kypseli are Nea ('New') Kypseli which ends at

Gyzi Gyzi ( el, Γκύζη ); is a neighbourhood of Athens, Greece. Etymology The area was named around 1925 after famous painter Nikolaos Gyzis. By all rights, the neighbourhood should have been called Γύζη (). However, due to the fact that he sig ...

neighbourhood and Ano ('Upper') Kypseli which borders with Attiko Park, Papandreou neighbourhood and Galatsi.

Districts

* 1. Ano Kipseli (Agias Zonis, Alepotripa, Agios Athanasios, Kyprion) * 2. Kypseli (Fokionos Negri, Plateia Kanari, Agios Georgios, Poligono) * 3. Nea Kypseli (Nea Kypseli I./Dikastiria, Nea Kypseli II./Timios Stavros)

History and architecture

Until 1908, when the county engineer Athanasios Georgiadis first bounded and planned Kypseli, Kypseli was a rural area with estates and country houses. In such a house

Konstantinos Kanaris Konstantinos Kanaris ( el, Κωνσταντίνος Κανάρης, ; c. 17901877), also anglicised as Constantine Kanaris or Canaris, was a Greek admiral, Prime Minister, and a hero of the Greek War of Independence.Woodhouse, p. 129. Biog ...

, fighter of the

Greek revolution The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution or the Greek Revolution of 1821, was a successful war of independence by Greek revolutionaries against the Ottoman Empire between 1821 and 1829. The Greeks were later assisted b ...

and later prime minister of Greece, lived and died. Also, in 1831, the British admiral

Pulteney Malcolm Admiral Sir Pulteney Malcolm (20 February 1768 – 20 July 1838) was a British naval officer. He was born at Douglan, near Langholm, Scotland, on 20 February 1768, the third son of George Malcolm of Burnfoot, Langholm, in Dumfriesshire, a sheep f ...

, had architects

Eduard Schaubert Gustav Eduard Schaubert ( el, Εδουάρδος Σάουμπερτ, translit=Edouárdos Sáoumpert) 27 July 1804, Breslau, Prussia – 30 March 1860, Breslau) was a Prussian architect, who made a major contribution to the re-planning of Athens ...

and

Stamatios Kleanthis Stamatios or Stamatis Kleanthis ( el, Σταμάτιος or ; 1802–1862) was a Greek architect. Biography Stamatios Kleanthis was born to a Macedonian Greek family in the town of Velventos in Kozani, Macedonia in 1802. As a youth he move ...

build him a house which now lies on Agias Zonis Street and houses the Hospice for the Disabled of Athens. A clearly urban development of Kypseli began in the 1930s with the construction of family houses and the first modern apartment buildings in Athens. The development of apartment buildings was contemporary with Kolonaki and other central neighbourhoods. Although many of the earlier houses were built in a neoclassical or

eclectic Eclectic may refer to: Music * ''Eclectic'' (Eric Johnson and Mike Stern album), 2014 * ''Eclectic'' (Big Country album), 1996 * Eclectic Method, name of an audio-visual remix act * Eclecticism in music, the conscious use of styles alien to th ...

style, from the 1930s onwards, the designs of newer houses and apartment buildings were influenced by international trends such as

modernism Modernism is both a philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new forms of art, philosophy, an ...

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 20 ...

and

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unit ...

. Μάχη Τράτσα
"Κυψέλη αρχιτεκτονικών αριστουργημάτων"
achi Tratsa, "Kypseli of architectural masterpieces" ''

To Vima ''To Vima'' ( el, Το Βήμα, lit=The Tribune) is a Greek weekly newspaper first published in 1922 by Dimitris Lambrakis, the father of Christos Lambrakis, as ''Elefthero Vima'' (Free Tribune). It was owned by Lambrakis Press Group (DOL), a ...

'', 15 December 2013. Adjacent large green areas such as

and Fokionos Negri Street pushed Kypseli to become an upmarket district with many apartment buildings built until the 1960s that addressed to the middle and upper-middle class. In 1937 the municipal market of Kypseli on Fokionos Negri Street, designed by architect Alexandros Metaxas, was inaugurated by the dictator

Ioannis Metaxas Ioannis Metaxas (; el, Ιωάννης Μεταξάς; 12th April 187129th January 1941) was a Greek military officer and politician who served as the Prime Minister of Greece from 1936 until his death in 1941. He governed constitutionally for t ...

. Moreover, the shops on the street level made Kypseli a shopping area. Shopping districts were Kypselis Square,

, Kypselis Street, Fokionos Negri Street and

Amerikis Square Amerikis Square ( el, Πλατεία Αμερικής, ''Plateia Amerikis'', "America Square") is located in central Athens, Greece. It is an open area adjacently to Patision Street Patission Street ( el, Οδός Πατησίων) is one of th ...

. During the 1960s Kypseli also had a vibrant nightlife with many theatres and cinemas, restaurants and cafés, bars and clubs. Beginning in the 1980s many residents of Kypseli moved to the northern suburbs of Athens and, later, immigrants started using the basements and the small apartments of the buildings as cheap residences. Consequently, the value of real estate decreased even if high apartments on Fokionos Negri Street can be sold more expensively in comparison to the rest of the district. Several areas have remained commercial such as Patission and Fokionos Negri Streets and Kypseli is still known for its many theatres. Gentrification and multiculturalism has seen Kypseli become a popular neighbourhood again in more recent years.

Transportation

Kypseli is served by plenty of bus lines. In the next decade Athens Metro line 4 will have some of its stations in Kypseli.

Trivia

The Greek band Keep Shelly in Athens is named after a pun on Kypseli.

Sports

Kypseli is the seat of Panellinios G.S., which was founded in 1891. Other sport clubs based in Kypseli include Athinaida F.C., a football club founded in 1938

Gallery

File:Kanaris-kypseli.jpg, Statue of

, Kypselis Square. File:Metaxas house in Athens.jpg, Apartment building and house of

(1928). File:Lanara condominium.jpg, Apartment building built by Ioannis Zolotas for the Lanaras family (1938). File:House on Spetson Street, Kypseli, Athens.jpg, House on Spetson Street built for Panagiotis J. Carras (1939). File:Spiteris House by Aristomenis Provelengios, Kypseli, Athens.jpg, Tonis and Ioanna Spiteris's home and atelier on Kykladon Street. It was designed in 1955 by Aristomenis Provelengios. File:Condominium in Kypeseli.jpg, One of the many apartment buildings that can be found in Kypseli, built in the 1950s and early 1960s. These buildings tend to be made up of large apartment units and very rarely surpass six storeys in height. File:Phokionos Negri street in Kypseli.jpg, The historic Fokionos Negri Street, now pedestrianised with numerous cafés and a park along its length, runs through the middle of the district.

References

External links

{{Authority control Neighbourhoods in Athens