Thessaloniki: The Modern Museum of an Ancient City
by
Alexandra Teodor
Keywords
spatial analysis
Greco-Roman urbanism
urban archaeology
urban cartography
urban museum
Started as an investigation on the common elements of the ancient and the contemporary city of Thessaloniki (Greece), this study is also an argument for the essential role of historical plans as complementary sources for urban archaeology – especially when the non-regenerable resource they represent, i.e., the historical urban fabric, has been predominantly lost.
Based largely on two directions of analysis – the configuration of the street network, and the general layout of the palatial complex of Galerius, along with a brief assessment of the recent built stock evolution in the background –, the main conclusion is that what used to be, no more than a century ago, an authentic historical city that developed organically over two millennia, is now a wide historical center with a compromised urban fabric, a limited (if not already exceeded) potential for development, and serious problems in the interpretation of the historical city. These outcomes all stem from the urban planning approach and implementation over the course of the last century. The limited set of data employed in this study, consisting of one historical city plan, and a couple of archaeological plans focused on one relevant area of the ancient city, might be perceived as a basis for a narrow and distorted view. However, I view it as a representative sample for what could be only the tip of the iceberg in deciphering what was actually lost in the process.
Rather than a gain for urban archeology, the process of urban development and renewal (particularly in the post-war period) is, in my view, a negative and irreversible interference with a historical site, transforming a living ancient-modern city into a modern museum of an ancient city.
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