“Polykatoikia” is a multifaceted theoretical and visual project on the Greek apartment building as a powerful social, aesthetic, and emotional symbol of urban life of the last 100 years.
The Hellenic American Union, with the support of the Association of the Athenians, presents the exhibition " Polykatoikia", which will be developed as a hybrid exhibition in the two exhibition halls on the ground floor. Painting, sculpture, installations, video, and photography are set in dialog with documentary evidence, models, memorabilia, and other archival material to articulate a complex narrative of the experience of co-habitation.
"Polykatoikia" exhibition, curated by Nikos Vatopoulos and Iris Kritikos, includes works by contemporary photographers, architects, and city flâneurs as well as works by visual artists. Several of the works on display were donated by major institutions and private collections specifically for the exhibition, while others come from the artists’ archives. The exhibition is accompanied by a series of free parallel events.
The “polykatoikia”, as we know it today, was born from a 1929 building decree regulating horizontal ownership, but after the war, became associated with urbanism and the “flats for land” practice (αντιπαροχή), as well as with the development of the suburbs. Its aesthetic, architectural, and sociological interpretation has always been subject to debate. The exhibition and its parallel talks, guided tours, and educational programs are intended to enrich public dialogue on the rise, development and future of the "polykatoikia" as a phenomenon that has left its mark on Greek urban space, and to invite a range of perspectives from architecture, social sciences, arts and personal experience.
