MplusM Architects Studio

On my way to the office every day I make sure I pass from Mavromichali street in Athens. At number 6, one may pause with a particular sense of historical proximity, mindful that, were it possible to step back into the late nineteenth century, this very spot would have afforded a glimpse of Ernst Ziller returning to his residence after inspecting the many edifices he designed across the city. His former home -now designated as the Loverdos Museum, after the banker who acquired the property following Ziller’s financial collapse- constitutes a listed monument in its own right. Its notably planar façade, atypically devoid of balconies for an Athenian neoclassical structure, is compensated by the presence of eight caryatids that frame the upper-storey windows, lending the building an idiosyncratic sculptural dignity.

At Berggasse 19, Vienna, two years after the completion of Monument Hotel, we visited another renovation, completed in 2020. The Sigmund Freud Museum, the birthplace where psychoanalysis was born, the address where Sigmund Freud lived and worked for 47 years before he had to flee from the Nazis in 1938, was renovated by architect Hermann Czech. Among the various traces of Sigmund Freud’s life, “witnesses” preserving the original colors of walls and ceilings were similarly visible as “windows” interrupting the white paint. The museum catalog states: “Thus, traces of the former use are revealed on the walls: Original wall paintings, wallpaper, traces of the carpet that was attached to the wall above Freud’s treatment couch, and even a telephone line in his daughter Anna Freud’s bedroom have been examined by conservators and bear witness to the use of the rooms during Freud’s time.”

On the second floor the preservation of older strata of paints behind the latest white cover paint was a conservation tactic that we mostly admired in the restoration of this listed building by E. Tsiller. While the interior design in this restoration was unfolding in our office, a small rectangle window-like was able to transport us in time, making us aware how the all-encompassing white became at some of time preferred to the polychromy of the original ceilings and exposed the work as a palimpsest. Vasilis Petropoulos, who was here assigned as the chief conservator, applied this technique of a partial revealing, coining for this exposure of the remaining color stratification, the suggestive term “witness.” Later, we found out that that V. Petropoulos was among the 23 specialists that had participated and cosigned the international text of guidelines of ICOMOS, “Principles for the Preservation and Conservation/Restoration of Wall Paintings” (2003). This text of guidelines, drafted in Copenhagen in 2002 and completed in Thessaloniki in May 2003, stated: “Whenever possible, samples of stratigraphic layers testifying to the history of the paintings should be preserved, preferably in situ. Natural ageing is a testimony to the trace of time and should be respected. Irreversible chemical and physical transformations are to be preserved if their removal is harmful. Previous restorations, additions and over-painting are part of the history of the wall painting. These should be regarded as witnesses of past interpretations and evaluated critically.”

Over the years, we have recurrently incorporated reflective surfaces—whether actual mirrors, as in the projects Anchored to the Rock (2012) and the Faliro House (1999), or mirror-like materials, as in the Reflected House (2022). Convinced of the singular illusionistic potency of reflection, we found ourselves particularly struck by Jean Nouvel and his work at the Rhinocerus Hotel (2018), where the semblance of mirrored planes is achieved in free-standing interior partitions. A related experiment in mediated reflectivity appeared in the Palazzo renovation in Venice (2014) by Gianni Botsford Architects, whose spatial ambiguities echoed our own preoccupations with the deceptive, almost metaphysical agency of the mirrored surface.

The beautiful ceilings were found with various damages, documenting how thin their surface is and exposing their substructure of narrow wooden planks (bagdati). The painstaking conservation preserved the patina of the whole. Such was the grandeur of those ceilings that, when the size of the room allowed, we strove to free all walls from furniture.

The mirrors lining the baths created unexpected reflections and axial doublings that, although unintended, replicate further the axial compositional principle that permeates the building.

Mood boards were prepared for all rooms and floors, so as to establish in each case a dialogue between the colors of the ceiling and the walls and furnishings proposed.

Back to Works

Monument Hotel: The renovation of a listed E. Ziller building

Status: Completed
Year: 2019
Location: Psyrri, Athens
Collaborators: Charitini Gritzali
Photos: Dimitris Poupapos Studio
Lighting Designer: Orestis Parisis for FOSS SA
Contractor: George Tsiviloglou
MEP: Gerasimos Petratos
Expert Conservator and Restorer: Vassilis Petropoulos
Brand Identity: G Design Studio
Website Design: Mozaik
Plants and Flower arrangements: Rizom Athens

Ernst Ziller (1837-1923) was a German born architect who was established as a major designer of royal and municipal buildings in Athens, Patras and other Greek cities. We were asked to transform one of his most impressive neoclassical buildings in central Athens, featuring unique painted ceilings, into a new eight room hotel.

One could focus on a single detail of this renovation and consider it emblematic of the entire scheme. I am referring to the conservation of specific area on the second floor, at the perimeter of the ceiling decoration. There, our conservator, as part of the renovation, locally removed the white paint so as to disclose a deeper, rectangular section of the original, richly colored ceiling. Within this limited area, in the so-called “witness,” the conservator preserved the original colorful mural as well as the later white coating, thus recording how the aesthetic preferences of users had changed throughout history. Through this new, ordered and controlled “peeling” which was not the result of weathering, we are offered a fleeting glimpse into the past, in a palimpsest that retains historical layers in distinct form.

Likewise, for us, the renovation of this project, its transformation into the hotel Monument, became an occasion for a dialogue of new and old, this time at an architectural level. That is, from the beginning we raised the question of how the new addition to the interior can be distinguished with similar clarity in relation to the pre-existing structure, and, at the same time, highlight the old. In this regard, there were two elements that we wanted to emphasize, the axial articulation and the ceilings: In the existing layout of the floors, the rooms featured an axial organization marked with tall double doors. This arrangement was faithfully preserved in our renovation, as was the basic structure of rooms –the new spaces for the bathrooms are placed sideways, secondary to the axial movement. They become boxes that do not touch the painted ceiling -lined with mirrors they disappear and reflect the ceiling. In this way the new and the old acquire a clear differentiation.

Because apart from the “witness,” the majority of the rooms in this neoclassical building by E. Ziller had impressive colored ceiling paintings. Before our renovation, signs of damage were evident: dents, cable passages, cracks, areas where the wooden thin substrate, the “bagthati,” was discernible. The conservator restored the ceilings by extending the older sections intact, deliberately retaining a light patina that they had acquired over the years. It was important that a complete, seemingly “perfect” restoration was not attempted, so as to emulate a painted ceiling without deterioration, a fresco that could have been completed “yesterday,” as is typically found in the murals of Greek Churches.

We attempted a corresponding reference to the facade of this neoclassical building on the ground floor, in the common areas of the hotel. Its facade, quite rare in that it faces three streets (Kalamida, Agiou Dimitriou and Melanthiou streets) has a characteristic archway. Inspired by this, we designed an arched opening and similar alchoves in the high ceiling interiors at ground floor. The original palette of the neoclassical ceilings influenced our selections for the colors in each individual room -matching the tones of each ceiling, we chose the colors of the textured walls and we completed the interiors with contemporary furniture that, without ever alluding to a prior condition, set a dialogue with the neoclassical past.

Monument Hotel: The renovation of a listed E. Ziller building

Monument Hotel: The renovation of a listed E. Ziller building

Privacy Policy

Who we are

Comments

Media

Cookies

Embedded content from other websites

Who we share your data with

How long we retain your data

What rights you have over your data

Where your data is sent