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A port in transition. The modernization of the port infrastructure of Thessaloniki in the early 20th century

2017-2020

The history of ports is a rapidly developing field of research that has attracted the interest of many researchers in recent years. Τhe port of Thessaloniki is a fertile and at the same time quite demanding field of research. Port activity has affected essentially the social, economic and spatial process of Thessaloniki over the centuries. At the beginning of the 20th century the city had become one of the most important commercial ports of the Ottoman Empire and later of the Greek state. Our research aims to study the infrastructure modernization of port during the first decades of the 20th century. The remodeling of the port at the beginning of the 20th century transformed its image and structure, reorganized its own space, increased its efficiency, optimized its transport dynamics, gained a new division of labor, and transformed a large part of the natural city ​​environment. Thus, in a sense, the study of the upgrading port infrastructure, based mainly, but not only, on the Historical Archive of Port of Thessaloniki, is an attempt to find out the interaction between technological development, economic growth and the natural environment. Finally, our aim is to make a contribution to the better understanding of the history of the city of Thessaloniki