This work started several years ago when I was asked by the National Historical Museum to view and identify some drawings, including the Trikala palace. Later, Mrs. Aliki Solomou showed me the drawings kept in the archive of George I, always at the National Historical Museum. According to the testimony of Julia Karolou, lady-in-waiting to Queen Olga, these drawings had been delivered to the Historical and Ethnological Society of Greece in order to be exhibited at the George I Museum, which was to be built in the National Garden (these are the unrealized plans for the palaces in Petalious, Tatoy, and Piraeus, as well as some other plans for smaller auxiliary buildings that had been built in Tatoy). These drawings remained neglected and unnoticed for about 75 years (later, in 2004, Kostas Stamopoulos published the drawings concerning Tatoy).

In February 1999, in collaboration with my colleague Mrs. Natalia Boura, as part of the seminar courses on the History of Architecture (Professor H. Bouras) at the National Technical University of Athens, we made a first presentation of the palaces of the newer branch of the Slesvig-Holstein house of Glucksburg in Greece. Since then, I have continued my research, expanding it to the other palaces in the Greek territory during the 19th century, both realized and unrealized.

All the information presented in this volume is certainly not new. For the Gaertner palaces in Athens, Tatoy, and Mon Repos in Corfu, there are extensive and documented monographs by Aikaterini Demenegi-Viriraki, Kostas Stamopoulos, and Sissy Kyriaki, while much has been written about the unrealized proposals of Schinkel and Klenze for the palaces of Athens and several for the Queen's Tower in Liosia, the unrealized proposal of Th. Hansen for the palace in Piraeus, the palaces of Michael and George, and the Achilleion in Corfu. However, there is always something new to say, something new to add.

In this volume, the unrealized proposals of L. Lange for the palaces of Otto are presented in detail for the first time, as well as the unrealized proposals for the country palaces of George I by Chr. Hansen, as well as those for the palaces in Petalious and Tatoy by E. Tsiller, E.H. Piat, and another unidentified one for the palace in Piraeus, as well as Tsiller's plans for the successor's palace (i.e. the Presidential Palace).

I believe that this marks the completion of a first comprehensive presentation of the palaces in the Greek territory during the 19th century, while paving the way for other monographs. [...]

(from the author's preface)