Modernist houses in Alimos

Most buildings in Alimos, the area where we live in Athens, are apartment buildings. This is mainly due to the fact that Athens is surrounded by mountains on three sides with the sea at the fourth, so the city does not have room to expand. Greek people do not like renovating their homes, so there comes a time when their homes become quite run down, and then they make a deal with a developer who builds an apartment building - the owner gets half and the developer gets the other half of the building, which they then sell. There is also another reason why this happens and that is that quite often, a house is bequeathed to more than one sibling and by converting the house to an apartment building, the siblings can have an apartment each.

This is what happened with my sister and me: we now each have an apartment, whilst the developer's two apartments were sold to two families.

There are still a few of the traditional houses left in our area. There are also some modernist buildings that people who could afford it, had built for themselves.

During a recent walk we spotted three modernist houses.

House no. 1 is extremely intriguing, and I always stop to have a look whenever I walk that way.

The top floor protrudes right out

in a very unusual way. It must be wonderful looking out from the top floor

I sometimes think that the two floors below must be quite dark as a consequence, but given that three sides of the building are made of glass that is probably not the case.

Despite the fact that it's all glass, it's extremely private.

I would love to know more about the building and its architect, and would love to have a look inside.

House no. 2 is near Pani Hill and we spotted it when we went there to celebrate Clean Monday

Beautiful and again, quite unusual.

Like house no. 1, house no. 3 is quite near where we live. Note the terrace between the two bedrooms on the top floor, which provides privacy, and at the same time, access through the french windows on to the terrace.

The elongated second floor is predominantly glass as is the first floor. One used to be able to see the building in its full glory before they planted the bamboo but it does make sense, the bamboo gives them privacy.

 I was not able to get a good photograph of the third side of the house, the one facing the sea, but it's all glass, leading on to the two terraces.  

It's beautiful, and I would love to live in it.