Hellenic Parliament Building/Monument of the Unknown Soldier

The history of the impressive Hellenic Parliament building is closely linked to the history of the Modern Greek state. Initially, the building served as the palace of Kings Otto and George I. A hundred years after its construction, it became the Parliament and Senate building and still houses the Hellenic Parliament today. Throughout the years, the building has undergone a series of changes and modernizations.

After the election of Otto, Prince of Bavaria, as King of Greece and the transfer of the Greek capital to Athens, it was decided to build the palace on Boubounistra Hill. This proved to be an inspired choice. The site chosen was in the center of the new capital, easily defended, and overlooking the Acropolis and the city of Athens. The proposal for the site was made by Friedrich von Gärtner (1791-1847), director of the Munich Academy of Fine Arts and official architect of the Bavarian court. Other ideas and proposals were rejected, among them those of Leo von Klenze for the Kerameikos, Ludwig Lange for the Lycabettus, Karl Friedrich Schinkel for the Acropolis and Stamatis Kleanthis and Eduard Schaubert for the junction of Peiraios and Stadiou Streets, which later became Omonoia Square.

On February 6, 1836, the foundation stone was laid at the highest eastern point of the city. By the following month, more than 520 people were working on the site. Among them were members of the army and artisans, including German architects and German, Greek and Italian builders. The ancient quarry of Pentele, the source of the marble, was reopened for this construction.

Gärtner designed an austere, functional, and compact building that respected the heritage of ancient Athens in the spirit of urban classicism. It was accessible from all sides. Its four outer wings had three floors each, while the central wing had two floors and two courtyards and staircases that facilitated contact between the floors.

The first kings, Otto and Amalia, moved in on July 25, 1843. Initially, the basement of the building housed the storerooms. On the ground floor were the secretariat and the palace treasury, together with the King’s private Catholic chapel, the strongroom and the kitchen. On the first floor were the Throne Room, the Trophy Room, the Aides de Camp Room, and successively the Dance Room, the Games Room, the Dining Room, and the Royal Chambers, which were connected to each other and were the most luxurious rooms in the building. Finally, on the second floor, there were the private rooms of the heirs to the throne, the Major Domo and the rooms of the palace staff.

After the expulsion of Otto in 1862, the palace housed the new king, George I. He arrived in Athens on October 17, 1863. After his marriage to Olga of Russia in 1867, several additions and modifications were made, the most important of which were the alteration of the east wing staircase and the construction of an Orthodox chapel on the second floor, dedicated to Saint George. The palace was now inhabited by a large family, and the need to provide hospitality to many foreign royals necessitated several changes.

The main reason for the changes to the original design, however, were two damaging fires, one in 1884, which destroyed the second floor of the north wing, and one in 1909, which completely destroyed the central wing and parts of the adjoining east and west wings, forcing the royal family to move to the summer palace at Tatoi. The king moved back into the palace in 1912, but by then few repairs had been made. No further changes or restorations could be made during the years surrounding World War I, as political events took center stage. Little could be done at the time, as Greece was involved in one war after another, and funds were scarce. The Balkan Wars, World War I and the Greek-Turkish War of 1919-1922 were more pressing matters than the renovation of the building. After the assassination of George I, the heir Constantine was sworn in as king and his residence until then, the Herodou Attikou Palace (now the Presidential Palace), was designated as the Royal Palace.

The members of the royal family stayed in the Old Palace – at intervals – and Queen Mother Olga until 1922, when she left Greece for good. The year 1922 was a turning point in the history of the building. It was abandoned for good by the royal family, while at the same time historical circumstances led to new uses. State services, private social organizations, international organizations coordinated to deal with the complex problems arising from the Asia Minor Disaster were housed in the building, along with public services established by the government to meet its growing permanent needs. Thus, in the second decade of the 20th century, the building housed the services of the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of the Army, the Ministry of Health, the International Migration Service, the Municipal Police, the Young People’s Christian Union, the Hellenic Red Cross, the International Women’s Association, and so on. It also ran a children’s clinic, a boarding school for students, a hospital and an orphanage for the Near East Relief Organization, and the Benaki Laboratories. The apartments of George I and the chapel on the ground floor were used to store the royal property, which was donated to the Historical and Ethnological Society in 1935. Until 1925, the interventions inside the building were rough arrangements aimed at dividing large spaces into smaller ones. The only new construction was the construction in 1925 of a small building in the area of the old palace, which is still known as “Palataki”. In 1927, the “Museum of Memorabilia of George I” was inaugurated as an annex to the National Historical Museum, which operated in the building until 1930 and then from 1936 to 1941.

In November 1929, after a long debate in Parliament, the government of Eleftherios Venizelos decided to move the two Houses of Parliament, the Parliament itself and the Senate, to the Old Palace. The work to transform the building into the Parliament and Senate Palace, designed by the architect Andreas Kriezis, was the most radical intervention in the building since its original construction: with the static interventions in the load-bearing body of the perimeter wings, the demolition of the central wing and the construction of a new one to house the Chambers of Parliament and the Senate. Externally, the most significant modification, without altering the form and aesthetics, was the new entrance on the north side, where a portico with six Doric columns was built, with elements borrowed from the other two porticoes that adorn the west and east facades. Changes were made to the interior decoration and layout to accommodate the new, completely different use of the building. The offices of the Prime Minister and the President of the Parliament were located on the ground floor, and the Parliament’s services on the first floor. The second floor houses the Parliamentary Library and the Council of State. In the renovated building of the Old Palace, the Senate was installed, as well as the Library and the Council of State in 1934, which remained in the building until 1992. On July 1, 1935, the 5th National Assembly solemnly began its work in the new Plenary Hall.

Since then, the building has housed the Hellenic Parliament. Since 1975, the modernization of the building has continued apace. The aim is to ensure the best possible functioning of its departments through the use of new technological tools and modern and upgraded equipment. The most important infrastructural change in recent years was the construction of a five-storey car park under the building, which greatly reduced traffic in the area. This has been followed by several changes in the surrounding areas, including the rerouting of incoming and outgoing traffic, marble paving, and new landscaping to enhance the monumental qualities of the building.

Among the most important aesthetic interventions in the exterior of the building was the addition of the statues of Charilaos Trikoupis and Eleftherios Venizelos, works of the sculptor Yiannis Pappas, in the western precinct of the building, visible from far away. In 2003, the statue “Mother” by Christos Kapralos was placed in the eastern precinct. In 2002, the Monument to the Battle of Pindos by Christos Kapralos was placed in the lobby of the Plenary Hall. The relief frieze, 40 meters long and 1.10 meters high, narrates the Battle of Pindos as a sevenfold structure, passing from peace to war, occupation, resistance, and ending in peace and reconciliation. It forms a fascinating contrast with the frieze in the Eleftherios Venizelos Hall. Restoration and conservation work in this hall, as well as in the Plenary Hall, the Senate Chamber and the Members’ Lounge, has recently been completed. In April 2009, an exhibition was inaugurated that graphically depicts the historical journey of the building.

The exhibition is accompanied by a collective scientific volume entitled “The Building of the Hellenic Parliament”. Through archival evidence and scientific research, a picture emerges of a building with a fixed external appearance, which demonstrated unlimited possibilities of flexibility to the needs of a complex organization.

With the decision to erect the Monument of the Unknown Soldier, designed by the architect Emmanuel Lazaridis, in 1928, the facade of the building was changed in relation to the surrounding area. The Monument of the Unknown Soldier, located in front of the Parliament building, is a cenotaph in honor of those who fell in the war. The Tomb is a large-scale Π-shaped retaining wall of limestone. The sculpture is in the centre of the wall. On the left and on the right there are two side stairs, while in the center there is a rectangular raised tomb. The stairs of the monuments are purely decorative, as the steps are for observation during ceremonies. The sculpture represents the naked male figure of a dead warrior lying on the ground. He holds a round shield in his left hand and wears a helmet in the style of ancient Greece. The representation of the body gives the impression that the Unknown Soldier is ready to rise at any moment.

The wall is surrounded on both sides by carved stones on which the names of the places where the Greek army fought deadly battles in modern history are engraved in sections. On the left of the composition are the battles of the First Balkan War. In the center of the monument, on the stones on the stairs, are the battles of the Second Balkan War and the Greek-Turkish War. On the right side of the composition, the conflicts of the First World War and the operations of the Greek Army in Russia are depicted. After the liberation of Greece in 1944, the battlefields of the Second World War and later the operations in Korea were added to the cenotaph. In 1994, by a decision of the Hellenic Parliament, the name “Cyprus” was added.

The honorary twenty-four-hour guarding of the monument was taken over by the Guard Company of the President of the Republic, which was renamed the Guard of the Monument of the Unknown Soldier. The characteristic image of the Parliament building with the Monument of the Unknown Soldier, the Guard of Honor with its characteristic movements and Syntagma Square in front of it, marks Athens and has become a place that attracts thousands of visitors, especially on Sundays at the time of the changing of the guard (11:00 a.m.).