Modern Greece

When Athens became the capital of independent Greece in 1834, the city was rebuilt in a Neoclassicism that looked back to antiquity. In the 20th century architects such as Dimitris Pikionis gave modernism a Greek form.

King Otto, a Bavarian prince, brought architects from the north. The Danish brothers Christian and Theophil Hansen designed the University, the Academy and the National Library, known together as the Athenian Trilogy, and Ernst Ziller designed hundreds of houses and mansions in the city.

In the 1950s Pikionis laid the paths around the Acropolis and Philopappos Hill with stone from demolished houses. Bernard Tschumi’s Acropolis Museum, opened in 2009, stands at the foot of the rock looking up at the Parthenon.