Larissa’s urban past on display at local museum of folklore
Admittedly, the city of Larissa in central Greece, like most Greek cities, is rarely associated with the notion of urban civilization. But an exhibition organized by the city’s Folklore History Museum titled «Urban Larissa: Neoclassicism in the Early Decades of the 20th Century» prompts interest as it manages to go beyond the usual confines of similar efforts and to recount the city’s course in modern history as it strove toward modernization and the West and struggled to overcome its Ottoman past. If this exhibition does manage to offer a new perspective, it stems not so much from the value of the items on display (photographs, mostly of demolished neoclassical mansions; reproductions of their interiors; everyday objects of the era; early 20th-century urban attire) as from the spirit that these evoke. The exhibition, which will run through the year, expresses an underlying desire to depict Larissa as a city with an urban past. The fact that this urge is being manifested now is not coincidental. The considerable time that has elapsed since the city’s incorporation into the modern Greek state – in 1881, along with the entire region of Thessaly – as well as Larissa’s gradual development throughout the 20th century into a dynamic regional hub, has put the city (and most other Greek cities for that matter) in a position to cultivate the idea that it has a distinctive urban past, despite an agricultural heritage during Ottoman times. The exhibition of Larissa’s history – documenting its transition from an agricultural center in Ottoman times to a city with a modern Greek vision – also reflects the story of many other Greek cities, especially ones close by such as Karditsa and Trikala, or others in the Macedonian region with similar economic and demographic backgrounds such as Veria, Kozani, Serres, Edessa, Kastoria, and Florina. These were all incorporated into modern Greece approximately 30 years after Thessaly, following the Balkan Wars of 1912-13. Vision of modernity Soon after the city became part of the modern Greek state, Larissa’s vision of becoming a modern city was initially expressed through architecture. Not long after 1881, Larissa’s Ottoman characteristics began to fade and were gradually replaced by European ones. A destructive fire in 1882 helped accelerate this process. Neoclassicism was the dominant feature of the new buildings constructed at the time. Although many of Larissa’s buildings – both private and public – seemed to acquire a simplified style of neoclassicism as was common in Athens, more sophisticated versions did emerge in numerous instances because the period of increased building activity in Larissa coincided with the abandonment of pure classicism. Also, wealthy individuals who settled in Larissa were not drawn to simplicity but sought to install additional ornamental features on or in their buildings. Few houses that emerged from all this creative productivity survive today, while the number of mansions or prominent public buildings still standing are even fewer.
