Revamped walkway to reflect sea and garden

Water tanks and ‘green rooms’ for seafront of Thessaloniki

By Dimitris Rigopoulos - Kathimerini

Although the spotlight inevitably falls on projects such as the metro and roads beneath the sea, the refurbishment of Nea Paralia — or New Beach — is the first large-scale project in Thessaloniki since the city was Cultural Capital of Europe.

The project, which is the product of an architectural competition in 2001, puts an end to an awkward period of stagnation which, coupled with delays in the implementation of major projects, led to dissatisfaction and complaints by local organizations.

Nea Paralia, one of the best known and most attractive parts of contemporary Thessaloniki, is a stretch of the seafront between the White Tower and the border of Kalamaria municipality. Built in the 1960s, it included a raised walking path beside the sea with greenery running parallel to it.

“The basic principle of the study was to retain the characteristic, recognizable physiognomy of the city’s seafront, the continuity and linearity of the landscape,” architect Prodromos Nikiforidis told Kathimerini. (Nikiforidis designed the study with Roland Castro, Sophie Denissof and Bernard Cuomo.) “The paved seafront is an ideal walk, without breaks or obstacles,” he said.

The architects sought points of interest along the seaside walk that are visually linked to the water. Water tanks of different sizes are scattered along the paved walkway of Nea Paralia, where pedestrians have no direct physical contact with the sea.

“They reduce the scale of the seafront,” said Nikiforidis. “They create stopping points and play areas, and they mark specific points without breaking the linear unity of the walkway.”

The polar opposite of linearity can be found on the inner side of the seafront, in 16 spaces shaped into a series of “green rooms,” each with its own theme. The rooms attempt to retain the familiar atmosphere of a private garden, reminiscent of the holiday houses that were located right on the shore of the eastern beach before the embankment was built.

“Unlike the paved seafront, the gardens are sheltered places,” explained Nikoforidis. “They have their own inwardness. The variety and alternation of the gardens with their opportunities for visual isolation, shade, surprise, discovery of something different, soft ground cover and greenery present another approach. By exalting the familiar and the private, they create new collective spaces on a local scale.”