UPJOHN PHARMACEUTICAL PLANT

PALLINI, GREECE

A flat, “unadorned” by other planting, green lawn separates the Upjohn pharmaceutical factory from the rather narrow main road to Marathon. The consequent setback of the buildings allows for more complete viewing of the facility, which consists of three different, in their external finishes, architectural entities – offices, production and restaurant/canteen.

While the office building is mainly plastered, the production building external walls have fair-faced yellow cement blockwork. The octagonal canteen is all glass except for its horizontal and vertical structural members which are fair-faced concrete. As the other two buildings also have fair-faced concrete fascias etc., this material becomes the aesthetically unifying element of the overall composition.

While most of manufacturing, laboratory and warehouse areas can be said to be conventional, the plant contains a first-ever in Greece absolute (99,97%) filter section. It was deemed important to highlight the fact that this section was functioning in this particular factory. This was achieved through the placing of fixed “windows” on a wall bordering a corridor, thus making visible this out-of-bounds part of the premises.