ABSTRACT
At the intersection of urban history, architectural studies, and history of science, this chapter has the ambition to raise interest in the history of modern Greek science, among the least- studied modern scientific cultures and to historicize the notion of metropolis, keeping in mind that the binaries it implies are always constructed by our own narratives. Focusing on the design and construction of the National Observatory of Athens during Othon's reign, the chapter argues that Bavarians' idea of modernity and what that implied was a strange notion to the local Greek population. By 1840, Athens exuded the atmosphere of a lively city with an extensive social and economic life. It was the time that the European nobility, Othon's court, and the rich Greek expatriates dreamt of Athens as a new European metropolis. The architectural facade of the observatory, which embodied European ideas of modernization, in fact preserved an isolated research institution with little usefulness to the Greek society.
