Paper short abstract:

Urbanix, describes the tactical alteration of built fabrics through processes of rejection and appropriation. Focusing on the case study of Drama, Greece, this paper provides alternative readings of historical narratives, where architecture acts as a witness and tool of slow violence.

Paper long abstract:

Cities are tangible manifestations of ideological evolutions, open-air workshops to test and reform ideas and formalise socio-political change. Acting as a repository of cultural memory, architecture is a palimpsest, where traces of the past can be identified in urban formations, buildings and iconography.

Nation-building, territorial changes and population transfers produce disrupted topographies, aiming cultural cleansing through the manipulation of urban fabrics. As an extension of urbicide, the author has coined the term urbanix (Georgiadou 2019) to describe the tactical alteration of built fabrics as a result of political shifts during peacetime. The author uses the lens of ‘slow violence’ to bring a case of urbanix to the fore. Urbanix refers to the gradual denial of elements of urbanity, rather than their monumental destruction associated with urbicide.

Under this prism, processes of rejection and appropriation underlying nationalist urban interventions, are investigated on the case study of the city of Drama, Greece, through a range of multimodal and nuanced approaches in built space manipulation. After its annexation to Greece in the early twentieth century and the concomitant population exchange of 1923, the city’s image was reformed to portray a new Hellenic national identity, through the erasure of its Ottoman heritage.

In scenarios like this, architecture assumes a dual role of the witness of political violence and tool in the hands of the perpetrator. Its examination can provide alternative readings and challenge prevailing historical narratives, offering a more inclusive understanding of contested pasts.