by guest contributor Dimitrios Machairidis
Photo credit: SNF/Yiorgis Yerolymbos
Some months before one of the biggest cultural projects in Europe – The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre (SNFCC) in Athens – is due to open its doors to the public, Hollywood on the Potomac was invited to a site tour of the huge construction site.
The National Library develops under the artificial Hill – At the top of the Hill the Opera House At the left the esplanade
The $831 million project started 8 years ago explains Ms. Elly Andriopoulou, administrative director of the Stavros Niarchos Cultural Centre (SNFCC). As the marvelous 19th century old Athens building of the National Library of Greece lacked space for the rich collection of books and manuscripts, they asked the Foundation to finance the construction of a new spacious building. At the same time the National Opera of Greece was looking for funds for the construction of a new Opera House. The Foundation undertook the responsibility to completely finance the huge project of constructing the two buildings in the same area. In cooperation with the Greek ministries of Culture and Finance they chose the old abandoned racetrack installations at Faliron Bay, between the city of Athens and the port of Piraeus. Renzo Piano, the famous Italian architect, won the international competition for the design of the new National Library and Opera House and the Stavros Niarchos Recreation Park that surrounds the two buildings.
Ms. Elly Andriopoulou
Since 1996, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre a non-profit organization, has been financing projects for the arts, culture, education, health, sports and social services all over the world. Its founder, the Greek ship owner Stavros Niarchos, a rich and famous jet setter and bon viveur who captured the international media in the 60s and 70s together with his big rival Aristotelis Onassis, established through his enormous fortune one of the biggest private foundations in the world. Three offices, in Athens, Monte Carlo and New York, evaluate proposals and agree to support development projects in many countries including the United States. According to Ms. Elly Andriopoulou, these projects are supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation to facilitate the formation of public–private partnerships as an effective means of serving public welfare. During its 20 years of existence the Foundation has donated $1.59 billion through 3,020 grants to nonprofit organizations in 111 countries around the world.
Inside the Opera House
The Stavros Niarchos Cultural Centre in Athens is one of the biggest projects the Foundation has financed since its establishment, says Ms. Elly Andriopoulou. According to the schedule, this summer the project will be completed and delivered to the Greek state. The complex task of the relocation of the National Library and the National Opera to their new premises is expected to be completed in 2017, when the Cultural Centre will function fully.
Inside the National Library
In Athens, Renzo Piano, inspired by the hills of the city and mainly by the Acropolis, one of the most famous hills on earth, designed an artificial hill that gradually slopes towards the Faliron Βay. Below the hill he constructed the two buildings, the Opera House and the Library. The 237,000 square foot technologically innovative National Library will house over one million books, journals, manuscripts, documents, records and engravings, some of them dating from the 9th century. The 301,000 square foot state-of-the-art Opera House includes a 1,400 seat auditorium and a 450 seat alternative performance space primarily focused on experimental, alternative and educational performances. At the top of the Opera House, the highest point of the artificial hill, Renzo Piano has installed the Lighthouse, a 9,700 square foot Cultural Center observatory terrace with restaurants and cafes and a breathtaking view of the city of Athens and the Saronic Gulf, letting one’s gaze reach the Aegean Sea, the Cycladic islands and the Peloponnese.
The Stavros Niarchos Park and the Opera House
Renzo Piano created a public space where education, culture, sustainability and environmental balance meet each other. 1,450 trees and 250,000 bushes and plants from the Mediterranean have been planted in the Stavros Niarchos Park. The Park includes a Mediterranean garden, a vegetable garden, a landscaped labyrinth, four 300 meters tracks and six straight 100 and 200 meters tracks with exercise equipment. The 108,000 square foot energy canopy on the roof of the National Opera building, the innovative ecological systems of composting and water management and the green surface of the site, make the SNFCC a strong candidate for the Platinum LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Certification.
The Opera House the National Library and the Esplanade
Athens was once a city of rivers. Worshiped as gods in the ancient times, the rivers Kifissos and Ilissos flowed into the Faliron Bay. The invasion of cars in the 20th century hid the rivers under highways. Renzo Piano has brought back to the city the memories of the rivers with the Esplanade he designed at the south east part of the Cultural Centre. Into the 400 metre length and 30 metre width Esplanade the water enters from Faliron Bay, reviving the eternal relationship of Athens with the sea.
Smile on the Dome of the Opera House
Investing in arts brings prosperity. Respecting this rule, in 2010 the Stavros Niarchos Foundation commissioned the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to conduct a study on the long-term proceeds of the SNFCC into the Greek economy. According to the BCG, the Centre will create 1,500 jobs and $1.3 billion of economic stimulus by the end of the process. In the long term it will inject $208 million annually into the Greek economy as a whole.
The Performance Space in the Opera House
The SNFCC will prove to be a very strong stimulus to the Greek economy, having suffered from a long financial crisis, as Ms. Elly Andriopoulou remarks. At the same time the SNFCC symbolizes the symmetrical coincidences of the numerous Greek benefactors who do not stop donating to their homeland once they become rich and powerful. Today, through the fortune of the ship-owner Stavros Niarchos, Greece is constructing the new National Library. Between 1887 and 1902 through the donations of the ship-owner Panagis Vallianos the impressive neoclassical building of the National Library in Athens was constructed.
