Athens Municipal Gallery

The Municipal Gallery ( Greek Δημοτική Πινακοθήκη της Αθήνας ) is an art museum in Athens . Today's location is the former silk factory on Avdi-Platz, which is also the namesake of the Metaxourgio district .

history

In 1914 it was formally decided to found a municipal art collection, although the first initiatives date back to the 19th century. The institution was finally founded in 1923 and the first works of art began to be purchased in the same year. As a further institution, the State National Gallery was founded in 1976 , which from then on assumed the role of the largest art collection in Athens.

In 1982 the Athens Municipal Gallery moved into the former building of the municipal orphanage, which was designed by Panagiotis Kalkos in the 19th century . Safety requirements and a lack of space made the museum there to create, so that a move was inevitable. It was decided to relocate the municipal gallery to the former silk factory in order to enable permanent and changing exhibitions at the same time. The new gallery has existed since October 27, 2010 in two 1500 m² buildings.

The first exhibition in the new building is dedicated to a private collection, the young collection of shipowner George Economou , which began in 2006. Their focus is primarily on the art of the 20th century , with works by Matisse , Picasso and Hockney, among others .

collection

The collection includes works from the 19th century by Spyros Prosalendis , Dionysios Tsokos and others, as well as works by Georgios Jakobides , Angelos Giallinas , Vincent Bokatsiampi , Nikiphoros Lytras , Jorgos Busianis , Agenor Asteriadis , Yannis Moralis and Gerasimos Steris . Contemporary art is represented with over 3000 works by, among others, Opi Zouni , Chronis Botsoglou and Makis Theofylaktopoulos .

An important part of the collection is a series of engravings by Angelos Theodoropoulos , Efthymios Papadimitriou , John Kefallinos , Vaso Katraki and Vicky Tsalamata .

The current building

The corner of the building

In its almost 170-year history, the building, which was originally designed as a department store, was instead used as a factory, barracks and hospital, and was vacant for long periods of time.

The former factory was designed in 1833 by the Danish architect Hans Christian Hansen , who was working in Athens at the time with his brother Theophil Hansen , who was ten years younger than him . The Hansens originally came to Athens to study ancient and Byzantine buildings, successfully established themselves as architects and designed the observatory , the Zappeion and the Hotel Grande Bretagne , among other things . However, they are best known for the Athens trilogy , consisting of a university , academy and national library . Theophil Hansen left Athens when Georg Simon von Sina brought him permanently to Vienna, where he made his international breakthrough.

The factory building was constructed from 1834 to 1835 to become a European-style department store. However, it stood empty from 1835 to 1852. In 1852 it was bought by an Austrian company that wanted to make it the first steam-powered silk factory. However, it was never put into operation due to the bankruptcy of the company. In 1854 it was used as a hospital. In the same year the Siriki company was founded, which used the building from 1855 to 1875 as a silk factory (Greek: Metaxourgio ). It became the largest manufacturing facility in Greece and the Balkans. In 1875 production had to be stopped because of competition from cheap silk imports from China.

Between 1892 and 1904, the construction of Germanikou and Giatrakou streets resulted in the destruction of the part of the building facing the street and its northeast sector. During the same period, shops moved to the ground floor and residents moved to the first floor, and in 1960 the north-eastern part was reconstructed. In 1944 it was used as the ELAS barracks , after a fire in 1960 some of the shops and apartments were empty until 1993. In 1993 the owner's grandson donated the building to the city of Athens.