A starry ceiling for new station
After a three-week delay dictated largely by security concerns regarding last week’s European Union meetings in Athens, the new metro station at Monastiraki is due to open for public use on Tuesday, reports said yesterday. The underground station, which lies below and around the refurbished Monastiraki Station on the Kifissia-to-Piraeus electric railway, is to contain novel features including a ceiling dome that will function as a planetarium, according to Eleftherotypia daily. The paper said a team of astrophysicists from the Evgenidis Foundation – which boasts the capital’s only planetarium – worked on the installation, which involves projecting onto the ceiling displays of stars and planets that will change every seven minutes. The station, which will directly link Line 3 from Ethniki Amyna to the electric railway, will also incorporate a section of the Eridanos River that flows underground in the area and was discovered during construction work along with several ancient artifacts, many of which will be displayed in the station.
