1.1. Architecture, Landscapes, and Public Perception
Better quantifications of people’s perceptions of architecture and landscapes are important for a transition to more sustainable living environments. Since cities and their infrastructure are designed for the people who are living within them, people’s understanding of architecture should be considered when defining their character. Research on public perceptions of living environments, however, has largely omitted the impact of architectural movements, an omission that might also be intertwined with the broader lack of relevant perception data [
1,
2,
3]. The impact of this lack of data has manifested itself, so far, in the difficulty that researchers face when trying to assess and compare the effect of architectural works in terms of receiving positive or negative public perception [
4,
5,
6]. This has eventually obstructed efforts to evaluate the efficacy of investments in such works carried out by public or private bodies [
7,
8], as well as efforts to integrate relevant considerations in urban planning and spatial design and planning practices. In the end, the problem of unknown/unquantified public opinions over works leads to a general lack of institutional will to strive for high quality in architectural and urban design. Since there can be no differentiation made between positively and negatively perceived architectural or urban works in terms of preference by citizens, there is little incentive to ensure high quality of architectural and urban design, eventually leading to the degradation of relevant policies and frameworks.
Another area in which the matter of landscape perception has been of great importance is the renewable energy transition. During the first decades of this transition, it has been very challenging to predict and mitigate the impact of renewable energy structures and equipment on landscapes [
9,
10], and the lack of detailed perception has been one of the causes of this. Eventually, this has led to increased risks for projects during their planning and construction phases, originating from potential public opposition movements motivated by negative perceptions from a landscape impact context [
11]. Thus, renewable energy projects have been facing challenges and opposition with landscape-related motivation [
12,
13], which have been associated with significant economic damages (on the scale of
$billions) [
11,
14] and developmental issues associated with delays in the implementation of renewable energy goals, e.g., in the EU of the Renewable Energy Directives and the European Green Deal [
15]. A better understanding of both the perception of such infrastructure per se and of the perceived quality of living environments of citizens is crucial in order to be able to optimize the design and planning [
16,
17] of such works [
9,
18], avoiding problematic locations and protecting highly perceived ones.
In summary, the quantification of public perceptions regarding architecture and architectural movements stands as an integral but largely unexplored [
19] research direction for advancing the formation of sustainable living environments. Existing approaches to research questions on the perception of landscapes range from questionnaires [
19,
20,
21] to analyses of social media uploads [
22,
23] to various types of analyses of georeferenced photographs [
2,
6,
24], image analysis methods [
25], and even crowdsourcing [
26]. However, there is still much potential for further analyses as the field is characterized by a scarcity of original data. The lack of relevant analyses and their utilization in planning and design practices contributes to communities often feeling a general disregard for the quality of their living environments. Furthermore, that lack of comprehensive assessment of architectural and landscape projects not only complicates the evaluation of investments made by the government or by private entities in those areas [
3] but also obstructs the integration of feedback from current practices into formulating future urban planning and spatial design practices for improved living conditions [
6,
27].
1.2. The History of the Urban Landscapes: Paris and Athens
This work seeks to investigate how the buildings belonging to different architectural movements are perceived by the public within the urban spaces of Athens and Paris, as well as the reasons for those perceptions. Even though both the perceptions per se, as well as the reported origins of the perceptions, were studied in this work, an analysis of the historical and cultural contexts that arguably contribute to these perceptions is also necessary for the interpretation of the results. Therefore, in this part of the introduction, we present a brief historical overview of the urban development of Paris and Athens.
The urban development of Paris and Athens is vastly distinct. On the one hand, the building, planning, and urbanization techniques developed during the golden age of ancient Greece have influenced the rest of Western civilizations for centuries [
28,
29], but on the other hand, the urban life and development of Athens have not been historically continuous. Meanwhile, Parisian urban development has been relatively unhindered throughout history, with architectural and structural innovations being integrated more harmoniously through time, gradually giving the city its current urban character.
Since its creation, Paris has been a major political center, starting with its local influence in France and gradually expanding to a European scale. Even though Paris was not always the city in which political powers were centralized, it can be argued that, for the most part, its role has been prevalent continuously from the 16th century until today [
30]. This relative importance throughout history is also what has enabled it to become an architectural center as we recognize it today.
The first testimony of human presence in the current Parisian area is a trace of Neolithic boats and habitations along the riverside dated around 4500 BC [
31]. Nevertheless, the history of Paris as we know it nowadays began with Lutetia at the beginning of the third century BC [
32]. Initially, the capital of the Gallic tribe, called the Parisii, the oppidum of Lutetia, fell under Roman domination after the battle of Alesia in 52 BC. The Roman invasion marked the start of urbanization and the premises of the city of Paris as we know it today [
32]. The fall of the Roman Empire, defeated by the Merovingian dynasty in 476, plunged Paris into the Middle Ages for almost ten centuries. The grid plan introduced by the Roman Empire was abandoned for narrow, winding medieval streets. In this era, the infatuation with religion and the abundance of cheap, highly skilled labor made it possible to build the Romanesque then Gothic architectural masterpieces that have endured for centuries, while the people themselves lived in dark, dilapidated, and insalubrious houses made of half-timber and cob [
33]. The French Renaissance introduced Classicism, Baroque, and Neoclassicism with the construction of most of the famous administrative or political buildings in Paris [
33,
34]. This era ended with the French Revolution, where a drastic break was made; architecture would no longer be reserved for the elite and for administrative or public buildings, but also for the inhabitants of Paris; the city should now also be pleasant and modern for them as well. Modernization work began under Louis XIV. Each of his successors undertook to modernize Paris a little more, but the boom in the modernization of Paris was marked by the arrival of the Emperor Napoleon to power [
34]. His work was taken up by the Count of Rambuteau, then Jean-Jacques Berger, and finally, the man who transformed the face of Paris, Baron Haussmann [
33]. The greatest changes were made during the Haussmann era, although the city continues to modernize and innovate architecturally to this day.
Like Paris, the premises of Athens date to the Neolithic era; nevertheless, the creation of Athens took place in 800 BC [
35]. During the archaic period, Athens was a place of power, even before its golden age started in 480 BC after the naval battle of Salamina, where the Athenians, the Spartans, and other Greeks jointly defeated the Persian empire [
36]. The alliance of Delos, which faced the Peloponnesian alliance, made Athens the most powerful city in Greece until 404 BC when the Peloponnesian War was concluded with defeat against the Spartans [
35]. The end of this war marked not only the end of Athens’ golden age but also that of ancient Greece. This and other wars weakened the older Greek cities and facilitated the rise of the city-state of Macedonia in the second part of the 4th century BC. Athens remained a rich city with a strong cultural life, but it gradually ceased to be independent. Macedonia, which remained a dominant Hellenistic power in Greece for the largest part of the 3rd century BC, was eventually annexed by Rome in the mid-2nd century BC. In this new Roman–Greek age, Athens obtained the status of a “free city”. The city remained an important cultural center and was visited by emperors, including Nero and Hadrian [
37]. Several Roman emperors built important buildings, some of which are still in use today [
38,
39]. However, the successive sackings of the city from the 3rd to the 6th centuries caused a great deal of damage. Although the town was rebuilt after each attack, the reconstruction was more extensive each time [
40]. The new center of the city became a vast complex around Hadrian’s Library. The final Slav pillage in the 6th century seems to have caused Athens to lose its political and cultural role once and for all.
With the centers of this civilization now transferred to Constantinople or Thessalonica, Athens was then a provincial town. The town was so far from the capital that it even became a place of exile in the 8th and 9th centuries. From the 10th century to the 11th century, the town regained its importance; many churches were built as a sign of prosperity; it was the golden age of Byzantine art in Athens [
41]. Almost all the most important Byzantine churches in and around Athens were built during this period, reflecting the city’s development. After the 4th Crusade, which drifted against Constantinople, Athens came under the control of the “Latins” [
42]. This lasted for more than two centuries, from 1205 until Athens fell to the Ottomans in 1458. Sultan Mehmed II was dazzled by the beauty of its ancient monuments and immediately declared an edict punishing the looting or destruction of Athenian monuments [
37]. During the 17th century, the city was seriously damaged by accidents and war. In the 18th century, ancient monuments were dismantled to build the new city wall [
43]. It is indicative of the history of Athens as a city of changing scale and character throughout history that in 1801, it was only the 43rd city of the Ottoman Empire in terms of population. Its 13,000 houses on and around the Acropolis were surrounded by a 3 m high wall that protected the city from brigands (the so-called klephts) and marked out its fiscal boundaries [
44].
During the Greek War of Independence, the city and the Acropolis were subjected to several sieges by both sides. The monuments suffered from war, plunder, and decay. In 1832, one year before the complete retreat of the Ottomans, Athens became the country’s capital, but the city was almost entirely ruined by the war [
45]. The population of Athens was around 12,000 in 1834. Athens was chosen as the Greek capital for historical and sentimental reasons, not for its grandeur. Nevertheless, a few buildings dating from the period between the Byzantine era and the nineteenth century can still be found in the city. During the reign of Otto I, a modern city was built, and public buildings in classical Greek style were erected, as well as neoclassical mansions. The city’s population exploded after the disastrous war with Turkey in 1921 when over a million Greek refugees from western Asia arrived in Greece. Large suburbs such as Néa Ionía and Néa Smýrni emerged as refugee camps [
45]. After the 2nd World War, the city began to grow again, with Greeks migrating there from their villages and islands. Overall, the 20th century was a time of continuous urbanization in Greece, which led to practically half of the national population moving into Athens and its suburbs. The influence of architectural movements can be easily traced during those times, presenting a clear transition from Neoclassical to Modernist and Postmodernist architecture, with influences from various sub-movements and the emergence of various site-specific architectural and urbanistic particularities. This examination of the historical and urban development of Paris and Athens sets the stage for the exploration of how public perceptions of the buildings of various architectural movements within these were shaped, laying the groundwork for our investigation into the interplay between architecture, urban landscapes, and the people’s appreciation of architectural styles associated with those movements. In this context, the aim of the study is to better understand and quantify public perception of buildings belonging to important architectural movements as viewed through the lenses of people living in different and distinct urban landscapes. The landscapes of Athens, Greece, and Paris, France, were analyzed in this regard as case studies.