[UN]FINISHED. Atlas of Athens' Incomplete Buildings - A Story of Hidden Antimonuments - Maria Labou, Skafte Aymo-Boot

"With its character of a ruin of a forgotten purpose the unfinished building is at the same time pointing to the past and to the future."

Maria Lalou & Skafte Aymo-Boot present the phenomenon of a particular pending architecture mutely present all over Athens. The concrete skeletons of polykatoikia – multi-story apartment buildings – are emblematic of the development of modern Greece throughout the second half of the twentieth century.

The book deals with the politics of urban space by treating the unfinished buildings as study objects and tracing their individual histories. Through the words of current owners and by means of photographs, archival documents and found artefacts, a different chronicle of the development of modern Athens is taking shape.

Essays by Brooke Holmes, Platon Issaias and Elpida Karaba critically touch upon the phenomenon from different perspectives. Moving in scale from a tactile portrait of one specific concrete structure to a complete building index, the Atlas introduces a method for extracting forgotten memories and hidden structures, suggesting an alternative reading of the city.

English & Greek texts 
Tap Sam Books, 2023
Hardcover, 288pp 
275 x 195mm