Kypseli
Up-and-coming Kypseli is being rediscovered by curious creatives for its fine architecture, lovely squares, and multicultural vibe. Art critic and curator Kiriakos Spirou shows you around.
A mere 100 years ago, Kypseli was nothing but picturesque countryside with vineyards and pastures, only two kilometres away from the Greek capital. A few mansions and farmhouses existed at the time, and the area was delineated by two flowing streams. When urban development began in the 1930s, the streams were built over and the first apartment buildings were erected in the Bauhaus and Art Deco styles popular at the time. By the 1950s, Kypseli was an exclusive upper-class neighbourhood, attracting artists and the intelligentsia. As the city centre became more densely populated, spreading beyond its initial borders, the elite retreated to the suburbs, and Kypseli shared the fate of other nearby areas and slowly degenerated. Drawn by the dropping rents, immigrants from the Balkans, Africa and Asia began to settle in Kypseli from the 1990s.
Today, Kypseli is one of the city’s most multicultural neighbourhoods, with about 50,000 residents. It’s so densely built, that urban legend had it that it was the most densely populated place in Europe (in fact, Athens is the third most densely populated city in Europe). The nearby Pedion tou Areos park is a much-needed green oasis for the district, but Kypseli’s affluent past is nowhere more visible than in the stately apartment buildings and old cafés on Fokionos Negri Street. The younger crowds have discovered St. George’s square as their new favourite hangout, and even residents from other areas are regulars here.
Kypseli is not all about urban history and ethnic grit. It’s also about the open-air markets and the feel of a small, inclusive neighbourhood. It’s the 24-hour grocery stores and families in their Sunday best leaving mass. It’s the whirring of the trolleys going up and down Kypseli Street and crowds chatting outside the many theatres on Kefallinias Street. It’s the names of forgotten poets and actors written on plaques outside old apartment buildings. It’s the rows of ornate mansions and pre-modern townhouses on Drosopoulou Street. It’s the alteration from hubbub to silence as you walk from one street to the next, and the constant feeling that, not far from the grandest Athenian monuments and the gravitas of ancient Greek history, the city’s past meets the present in a different way: quiet, undramatic, unannounced and very, very human.
Patission Avenue (28 Oktovriou Street)
This main artery connects the former suburb of Patissia with the city centre. In the 1960s, it was one of Athens’ most upscale shopping streets. Patission Avenue is perfectly aligned with the Parthenon, because the 19th-century city planners wanted it to lead straight to a palace that was never actually built.
To get to Kypseli, you’ll probably take the train to Victoria Station, a listed Art Deco building named after the British monarch, and then walk for a few minutes along Patission.
Fokionos Negri Street
Kypseli Municipal Market
