Eugene Trump
The planning and the actual construction of villa Julia was entrusted to the French architect Eugene Trump.
Eugene Trump came in Athens in 1873 to assume the position of the architect of the Lamia Railway Company. He built several private and public buildings, among which are the French School at 6, Didotou street, the Negreponti-Lourioti mansion, the Vouros house, the mansion of the Military Court on the corner of Kriezotou and Akademias street. His buildings are characterized by simplicity, symmetry and rythm, correct space organization and functionality omitting the monumental and excessive decoration of the bavarian architecture of the time.
F. Loyer, author of the book “L’ architecture de la Grece au XIX siecle”, Athens 2017, writes: ‘He knew how to make the difference between a monument and a building of services, between public and private architecture’; moreover, with reference to the Military Court mansion, Loyer remarks: ‘This sobriety of design is the signature of the Atelier Questel student [Trump had actually been a student in the famous atelier of the Paris School of Fine Arts]’. This distinctive trait, indeed, could neither escape the notice of Gaston Descamps, archeologist and member of the French Scool in Athens; as quoted by Loyer, he said in praise of Trump: ‘Fortunately, a French architect, Mr Trump, has come to live in Athens for a few years. He has built several houses that easily stand out by their elegance and taste, in the eyes of the travellers, from among the bavarian colonnades.’ About the French School, Descamps comments: ‘The project was commissioned to the architect E. Trump, recently settled in Athens. The whole idea is characterized by great simplicity with nothing monumental.’
Nikolaos Peroglou met Trump in Athens, which was then just a small town. Eleni Hitzanidou, Peroglou’s daughter, used to say that her father had visited a summer house designed by Trump in Trouville-sur-mer, a spa town at the mouth of the Seine 80 km from Paris. He liked the house very much and it was eventually used as model for the designing of Villa Julia.
Symmetry, simplicity and proper function are the eminent characteristics of villa Julia. The house is organized on two levels with a total surface of 390 square meters. It is entirely built of aeginean stone. The way that the stones are put and held together accounts for the exterior beauty of the building and is especially visible in the window framings and the carrier angle stones. As for the interior decoration, the outstanding features are, of course, the beautifully painted ceilings and the panelled doors.
The house has kept its original form on the outside as well as on the inside to this day.
