What I can see

The Supreme Court, designed by Iasson Rizos and Dimitrios Kataropoulos, exudes monumentality, has a modern Doric style and the façade’s skeleton that frames the glass, is covered with marble. In the same building complex are the magistrate’s court and the small claims court, designed by Vaso Tsopela and Efstathia Koutsoufengi.

What I can't see

The area around the courts is informally called the Arios Pagos area, but in the past it was called the Averof area, because of the prison of the same name that existed at the same place. The prison was built between 1894 and 1896 with funding from Georgios Averof. Averof offered the amount to Queen Olga, who aimed to improve prison conditions through the association “En Christo Adelphotis ton Kyrion” (Ladies of the Christ Sisterhood), while she had already used the gift that Averof had given her at her wedding, to build a prison for minors. After 1916, the prison was used for every convict and the women’s prison was also located next to it. During WWII, many Greeks were detained and tortured here by the Nazis and their collaborators. During the civil war, part of it was blown up and after the war it was used for criminals and political prisoners. Then, all buildings were demolished and the construction of the courthouse began.

Info

• Address: 121 Alexandras Av.

Bibliography