The Past and the conservation of History : The making of the historic core of the Greek capital city

In this paper I examine the making of the historic space of Athens through the narrative framework of the representation of the nation, and the means used. Since the foundation of the Greek nationstate, the narrative framework in question and its content have been expanding to include more and usually conflicting subnarratives. In parallel, since the delimitation and specification of the initial historic space of Athens, the overall covered area and content have expanded to include areas with varying built typologies that refer to different pasts. The expansion of the territorial limits of the historic space, as well as the inclusion of larger samples of built typologies is related to the opening of formal history to formerly ‘forbidden’ narratives but also comes to show the shift of social and political priorities. The definition and formation of the historic space of Athens had extreme importance in the nation-building effort and can be divided in three distinct phases.