The name is absent

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common for families to return to the villages from where they came to build or expand
family (patriarchal) homes. It is unclear whether the Prapopoulou family originated from
Halandri or not. Regardless, this house which was built among the trees at the meeting
point of a peaceful creek and the main road that led to Athens, the Prapopoulou estate
would have stood for wealth, refinement, and ultimately, progress and promise.

When I first saw it, however, the house looked worn, old, and out of place. Its
exterior had been damaged by years of exposure and neglect and the land that surrounded
it had become overgrown and wild. Yet, I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Despite the
damaged exterior and unkempt surroundings, the structure was striking: just as the
Acropolis contrasts with the urban nest that surrounds it, so too does this house contrast
with the rows of apartment buildings it separates. In contemporary Greece, anachronism
seems to carry power. Both the Propopoulou estate and the Acropolis represent different
imagined moments in the national history-ideal - the Acropolis standing for the familiar
Classical past, and the estate representing a relatively more recent period of growth,
wealth, and an accompanying gentrified periphery. Both sites are laden with symbolic
meaning and their uses inevitably converse with those meanings. For example, while the
Acropolis is used by the government for both symbolic and economic nationalist ends
which accord with and support the broader public perception of the site, the Propopoulou
estate is being used by rebellious anti-establishment youth pursuing activities that
contradict the politics, modes of wealth-making, and socio-cultural practices the estate
stands for. This may seem negative, but consider the broader context. Instead of
maintaining the site as a symbol of Greek prosperity, the current legal owners of the land
were perceived to be wrangling over who would benefit most from the estate’s eventual

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