In Athens, such as in many other cities, many beautiful traditional buildings are demolished so that apartment buildings can be build on their plot, since old houses are not very space-efficient and profitable, nowadays. As a result, the architectural heritage fades away, and an important part of the past is being lost. Many people who are interested in the protection of the architectural heritage create movements to retain it as much as possible.

MONUMENTA is a non-profitable organization which records the architectural beauty of Athens and fights to preserve the beautiful buildings of great architectural heritage in such difficult days.
http://www.monumenta.org/index.php?lang=en

This organization recently started an ambitious program, called "Recording and Promotion of the 19th and 20th century's buildings in Athens".
This program focuses on keeping a record of all buildings which currently exist in the City of Athens by taking photos of them. In addition, buildings which are estimated to have been built before the '40s are observed closely, and every special aspect in them is stored. Everyone from the country may make his own observations and add them to the total work, which makes it have a very rich historical-architectural file which is open to anyone.

This program is very important, because not only does it allow people to learn about the architectural importance of the buildings, but it is very helpful for the conservation of the old buildings. In addition, this program will allow us in the future to be able to know how old a building is, knowing whether a building was build before or after the period of 2012-2016, and therefore identify any illegal building demolitions.

Most of the people who participate on this program are architects, or people involved in architecture generally.

 The reason I participate is the fact that I can understand the importance of such a program because of my neighborhood, where old buildings have been demolished and I see people that try to find a way to ''bypass'' the law to their favor.

This program has many difficulties because it is massive, but the volunteers who participate are determined to complete it.

When one keeps record of the buildings there are certain problems that he faces. The form of those problems is often practical, such as the fact that some buildings are not properly numerated, or certain roads which appear on the map have been covered with buildings. But the main problem is that many people complain when we take photos of their houses (the outer view, of course), since they think that it is against the law (it is not against the law since the outer view of a house is considered to be public environment). Such problems discourage and slow down the volunteer work, but the volunteers usually achieve to convince the people who complain about the importance of the program.

Personally, I find the work of keeping record of buildings very interesting and satisfying because I learn many things about architecture and I am glad that I help my hometown to keep its architecture alive.

I suggest that anyone who faces such problems with the city he lives should try to take responsibility and one or the other way help his city retain its character.