Yiannis Vikelas has designed over 900 buildings in his 60-year-long career, he has constructed almost half of Athens, in which he has practiced nearly exclusively. A genuine child of his times, he based his beginning on the practically axiomatic validity of the international style hypotheses, which were common among other important carriers of modern Greek architecture: the adoption of modern rati
onalism vernacular, of Mies in particular, in his first projects, the pavilions of the Commercial and Ionian and Popular Banks at the international Exposition of Thessaloniki in 1958. Then, he gave rather solitary battles, which he carries out until today, for matters placed in the centre of his beliefs and interests, with remarkable progress: the high-rise and the glass building, topics that raise the fury of many orthodox "safekeepers" of Greek architecture - even though we are in 2010, there are still many of them, especially in Athens. His buildings are marked by the efficiency of typological and functional solutions, and by their structural an technological aptitude. There are even types of buildings, like urban and suburban apartment buildings (for example his project in Psychiko, Kifissia and Filothei, since the late 60's), that literally created a typological and aesthetic model, and defined the identity of entire regions. Vikelas Passed through all the phases of architectural taste: internationalism, post-modernism, late-modern pluralistic eclecticism. Taking into consideration his previous persistence for the creation of shells "with base, body and crown-ing" (particularly in the high-rise buildings, see Tower of Ampelokipi 1967), or, creations of a generalised classical treatment on account of "locality" of a "pro rata" architecture in the city of classicism, one may safely conclude that he did not adopt post-modernism ex abrupto, responding to a fashion request. This can be sustained simply by the example of Vassilissis Sofias Ave. and the three buildings he realised in close proximity to each other on that particular road: the new wing of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (corner with Akadimias St. 1971), "Astir Palace" Hotel (corner with Panepistimiou St., 1979), and the "Arvaniti" office building in the corner with Sekeri St., in the period of the post-modern boom (1982). If there is some matter that rises by his architecture, it's the conflicting relation of form and content, the symbiosis of his building's high rational functionality with their outer coating, the package which always owes to be reinvented from the beginning and to always exert its own charm, in harmony with whatever appears to be spirit of every period. From this point of view, the production of Yiannis Vikelas offers an admirable tour in the world of contemporary architecture, through the most unexpected influences: from the obvious, "time- less" presence of Mies (design for Greek Embassy in Brasilia, 1973), to the mostly explicit references to projects of Norman Forter, Hans Holbein, Furnihiko Maki, Pietro Belluschi, Gunther Domenig, Axel Schultes, Bernard Tschumi, even Nikos Valsamakis and Alexandros Topazes. The shopping centers in particular constitute the extrovert prolific synopsis of the post-modern impulse ("Agora", 1985), or the american cosmopolitan spirit ("Galleria", 1979). Yet Vikelas expressed clearly negative criticism on postmodernism in 1989, in a period when other significant Greek architects still rushed aboard that train of populist historicism. In an interesting note in "Architecture in Greece", not only he distances himself clearly for the 'nostalgic garrulity", he even proceeded to justify the multiple references mentioned above. "Tendencies" are good, as are the "movements", as long as one does not become their prisoner, is the summary of the Athenian architect's thought. Stylistic "directions" are surely necessary in the context of an expressive "discrete vigour" (that translates into architecture's "shiny" public image), which unswervingly adopts the most advanced technological and structural ways of the the time. In a more recent note of his, again in "Architecture in Greece" (2006), Vikelas mentions once again architecture's transforming character, which owes to follow the social conditions and requests, pointing that , after the decline of "less is more", the path of design could not but pass exclusively through "the ambiguity, multifariousness and complexity of life". The architecture of Yiannis Vikelas has chosen to respond with optimism and realism, yet with talent, to the request of modernisation of greek society, and to guarantee a public image for many protagonists mainly of the private financial and business activity. He responded to the market needs without ideological commitments, trying in each case to interpret the most advanced "zeitgeist". Far from the anxiety of a "personal poetic". in a long period of Greek Architecture evolution, Vikelas has shown the sustainable development range of its expressive and technological means, destined towards a clientele he protected (along with all of us) from the dramatic or even mortal lapses. After this long and full of experience architectural journey, Yiannis Vikelas has passed the reins of of his legacy and his firm to this only- son, architect Alexis Vikelas. Following his father' s steps Alexis Vikelas has already contracted and designed high profile buildings and large scale Malls. The future of his firm is now standing in this hands with a clearly promising future.
