The Greek Film Archive and other culture hot spots
The new home of the Greek Film Archive (TTE) is scheduled to open on October 1. Having moved from its original, unsuitable site in the Deligiorgis Mansion on Kanaris Street in Kolonaki to Iera Odos, the TTE will combine various cultural activities, ranging from education to entertainment, and thus attract both cinema aficionados and a broader public of pupils, students, film buffs and professionals. The new archive has been built into the shell of an old summer cinema with simple modernist lines. Municipal Gallery The City of Athens will complete work on transforming an old stone complex in Metaxourgio into the new home of the Municipal Gallery in the coming year. The building is a 19th-century, two-story «metaxourgeio,» or silk factory, which gave its name to the neighborhood, and which the city bought in 1993. Work is in full swing on a project that will change the appearance, not only of Avdi Square, where the gallery is located, but of the entire area. The project is an excellent opportunity for the gallery, located for many decades in the former children’s hospital on Pireos Street, to update its profile. The City of Athens has a fine collection of Greek paintings, which the move to a larger, more modern space will help display. Next door, a new building designed by Studio 75 is going up on the site of the former Kotopouli warehouse. Onassis Cultural Center A gleaming new cultural center built by the Alexandros S. Onassis Foundation is nearing completion on Syngrou Avenue. Horizontal bands of marble that will allow the interior of the building to be visible, mainly at night, are being fitted to the rectangular building. The center will have two auditoriums of 900 and 220 seats respectively, an exhibition space, a digital library, a professional recording studio and a restaurant with a view of the Acropolis. It is slated to go into operation in November 1010. Michael Cacoyannis Foundation The building, designed by the architectural firm of Vassilis Sgoutas, is almost ready. The project was a challenge for the architects, given the uneven aesthetic environment on Pireos Street, close to the intersection with busy Hamosternas. The building comprises a 314-seat theater, 115-seat cinema, 68-seat experimental cinema, exhibition space, restaurant, offices and underground parking space for 53 vehicles, National Theater Choreographer Dimitris Papaioannou’s new work «Nowhere» will inaugurate the fully refurbished main stage of the National Theater’s historic building on Aghiou Constantinou Street on October 7. The performance will mark the birth of a new era for the National Theater. In addition to the total makeover of the original building designed by Ernst Ziller, the complex has been vastly expanded. The New Stage offered a taste of the changes when it went into operation last year, but the real opening will take place this year.
