Athenian trilogy

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The Athens Trilogy is an ensemble of three classical public buildings on Panepistimiou in Athens , halfway between Syntagma Square and Omonia Square . The Catholic Cathedral and the eye hospital are in the immediate vicinity . The lavish buildings were financed through private donations. The overall name "Athens Trilogy" comes from Theophil Hansen .

meaning

The Athens trilogy, together with the university , academy and national library, formed the intellectual center of the city well into the 20th century. Although the buildings are still used by the institutions to this day, a large part of the functions is distributed across many buildings (some outside the city).

In the canon of forms, all three buildings exclusively follow ancient Greek models and with a rigor that is unusual even for classicism. Since many ancient buildings have been preserved in Athens, that would not be anything unusual. What is remarkable, however, is the colourfulness of the buildings, which with their frescos and painted friezes - and on top of that on the original Pentelic marble - convey a good picture of the quality of the ancient building.

buildings

  • Athens Trilogy (according to structural arrangement)

  • The national library

  • The university in the middle of the ensemble

  • The academy

university

The university around 1910
The library under construction

The university, which was built from 1839 to 1842, was one of the first projects initiated by King Otto . The building was planned for the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens , founded in 1837 . The building was financed from donations.

The still young Danish architect Theophil Hansen , who had been studying in Athens for a year, was commissioned as the architect . A large part of the design was carried out by his brother Hans Christian Hansen , who was 10 years older than him, and who recommended it to the Athens city planner Eduard Schaubert . What was unusual was that both had chosen Athens as their place of study in antiquity and did not stay in fashionable Rome like many of their contemporaries.

The floor plan of the building is T-shaped, from a distance the building looks unadorned and simple except for the portico, and the interior shows a very complex ornamentation. For the first time, architectural elements from antiquity, such as the coffered ceiling of the Propylaea , were copied exactly and placed in a new context. This is presumably due to the fact that Hansen came to Athens to study ancient buildings and, as an architect, also supervised the rebuilding of the Nike temple . The frescoes in the vestibule were designed by Carl Rahl , but they were carried out posthumously by Eduard Lebiedzki .

academy

In 1846 Hansen moved to Vienna to take care of the building work of the Baron von Sina. So he sent his colleague Ernst Ziller to Athens, who took over the local support. Like Hansen before, Ziller was now able to distinguish himself as an independent architect and opened his own architecture office in Athens.

The Academy of Athens was built as the second building in the trilogy in 1856; the building known as the Sinea Academy was donated by Simon of Sina . Theophil Hansen was again commissioned as the architect, the wall paintings were carried out by the Austrian painter Christian Griepenkerl , who was previously a student of Carl Rahl. The coffered ceiling is modeled on the Erechtheion on the Acropolis. All three wings of the building have a slight curvature, a design principle from antiquity that was otherwise actually dispensed with in classicism due to the expense.

National Library

The last building to be built was the Greek National Library from 1885 to 1891 , donated by Panayis Vagliano and also designed by Theophil Hansen and Ernst Ziller . As a building with three wings, the National Library on the left corresponds to the Academy on the right. In contrast to this, the execution follows a very strict form of classicism and a portico that is based on the Theseion . Only inside is the design language a little looser. The building was only occupied in 1902.

Details

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Coordinates: 37 ° 58 ′ 51 ″  N , 23 ° 44 ′ 0 ″  E