Ancient Greek architecture was produced by the Hellenic people who thrived on the Greek mainland, the Peloponnese, the Aegean Islands, and in the colonies in Anatolia and Italy from around 900 BC until the 1st century AD. The earliest remaining architectural works dating from about 600 BC.

 

Ancient Greek architecture is famous for its temples–the Parthenon being a prime example–that are found throughout the country, mostly in ruins, but a few surviving surprisingly intact. Other types of ancient Greek buildings still surviving today are open-air theaters, processional gateways (propylaea), public squares (agoras), storied colonnades (stoes), town council buildings (bouleuteria), monumental tombs (mausoleums), and stadiums.

 

There are 3 distinct orders in Ancient Greek architecture: Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian. The Romans adopted all 3 orders around the 1st century BC, and since then, they have been continually used in European Neoclassical architecture.

Even though sometimes the Doric order is considered the earliest, there is no concrete evidence to support this. In fact, the Doric and Ionic orders seem to have made their appearance at around the same point in time; the Ionic in eastern Greece and the Doric in the west and mainland.

 

The Temple of Hera in Olympia is the oldest, well-preserved Doric style temple dating back to about 600 BC. The Doric order later spread throughout Greece and Sicily, where it continued to be the leading monumental architectural style for 800 years.

The Doric order originates in the mainland and western Greece. It is the starkest architectural order and is characterized by short, organized, massive columns with plain, round capitals, and no base. With a height that is just 4 to 8 times its diameter, Doric columns are the shortest of all orders. The shaft of the Doric order columns is channeled with 20 flutes, while the capital consists of a simple ring necking or annulet. The echinus is convex, or circular cushion-like stone and the abacus is a square slab of stone. Above the capital is a square abacus that connects the capital to the entablature. The frieze of the Doric entablatures is consists of triglyphs and metopes. A triglyph is a section that consists of 3 vertical bands, separated by grooves, while a metope is the plain or carved relief located between 2 triglyphs. The Greek forms of the Doric order come without an individual base, and they are placed directly on the stylobate.

The Ionic order originates from eastern Greece and is distinguished by slender, fluted columns with a broad base and two opposed volutes or scrolls in the echinus, which is adorned with an egg-and-dart motif. The Ionic shaft comes with 24 flutes, 4 more than its Doric counterpart. At its base, an Ionic column has two convex mouldings called tori, separated by a scotia. A column of the Ionic order is 8 times its lower diameter. The architrave of the entablature usually consists of 3 stepped bands, and its frieze is sometimes adorned with continuous ornamental carved figures.

The Corinthian order is the most intricate of the Greek orders. It is distinguished by a slender fluted column and an ornate capital, which is decorated with 2 rows of acanthus leaves and 4 scrolls—the Corinthian order is widely considered the most graceful of the 3 orders. The shaft of a Corinthian order pillar has 24 flutes, which is usually 10 diameters high. According to the Roman writer Vitruvius, the invention of the Corinthian order is attributed to Callimachus—a Greek sculptor of the 5th century BC. The oldest known Corinthian style building is the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens that was erected between 335 and 334 BC.

Phoenix Athens presents the opening for the exhibition: ART INSTEAD on Thursday the 25th of June. This exhibition features works by Athens-based artists who participated in the online program and residency that Phoenix Athens created during the COVID-19 lockdown. Art Instead explores the distinctions between the virtual and the physical, the digital, and the palpable while showing how artists found inspiration and survived despite the conditions they faced during the “lockdown.”

The title for the show is informed by the contextual factors of isolation and confinement and the sense of fear and apprehension that so many of us experienced and had difficulty coping with in certain cases. ART INSTEAD proposes art as a pathway to purpose and enlightenment, a way of maintaining hope and optimism while re-examining the familiar through a more focused lens. Art Instead is a manifestation of the global state of quarantine, one in which the audience can now be physically engaged. These highly engaging and personal works span a range of mediums to include video, painting, photography, sound, printing, and rendered imagery.

The exhibition includes works by Electra Stampoulou, Clemence Barret, Vassiliki Koukou, Ilias Georgiadis, Smaragda Nitsopoulou, Catherine Chatzidimitriou, Irini Makri & Angelina Mavrogianni’s, Feeleash Katerina Papazissi. 

On Saturday, 20 June 2020 the Acropolis Museum celebrates 11 years of operation and welcomes back its visitors. The Museum has undertaken all the necessary measures for the protection of the health of its visitors. On this day, the Museum will be open from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m., with a reduced entry (€5) to all exhibition areas. Additionally, visitors will have the opportunity to see the temporary exhibition ‘Chisel and Memory. The contribution of marble craftsmanship to the restoration of the Acropolis monuments’, which will continue until 30 September 2020, with free entrance. On Saturday 20 June, the Museum's second-floor restaurant will operate until 12 midnight.

Moreover, gallery talks held by the Museum’s Archaeologist-Hosts will commence this week. Visitors wishing to participate are required to wear a protective mask (not provided by the Museum) and to use the whisper guide system headsets (provided by the Museum to participants).

The lost statue of Athena Parthenos

The Acropolis Museum brings to life, digitally, the statue of Athena Parthenos. Made of gold and ivory, this masterpiece was designed by Phidias for the Parthenon. The Museum invites you on a walk of knowledge about its construction materials and techniques, its myths and allegories, its radiance, and its adventures. 

English: Every Friday at 11 a.m.

Duration: 50 minutes

Participation: Limited to 10 visitors per session. 

Price: €10

A walk through the Museum with an archaeologist 

Visitors have the opportunity to participate in evening walks through the Museum exhibition galleries, making unanticipated stops and various discussions, together with an Archaeologist-Host.

English: every Friday, at 6 p.m.

Duration: 60 minutes

Participation: Limited to 10 visitors per session.

Price: €10

Walking in the ancient neighborhood of the Acropolis Museum 

Visitors are given the opportunity to wander through the archaeological excavation which stretches underneath the Museum, like a giant exhibit. They will be able to walk on the ancient neighborhood’s streets, take a closer look at the houses with their courtyards and wells, enter the heart of the impressive mansions with the private baths, examine the workshops with the water reservoirs, take a magical stroll through time and the daily life of the people who lived in the shadow of the Acropolis’ rock for over 4,500 years.

English: every Saturday & Sunday, at 11 a.m.

Duration: 45 minutes

Participation: Limited to 10 visitors per session.

Price: €10

Flux Laboratory Athens shares the dance project ‘WHAT IF IT WAS YOU?” on the occasion of World Refugee Day, on Saturday, June 20, 2020. Performed by artists Joanna Toumbakari and Andi Xhuma, and choreographed by Markella Manoliadi, the piece has been inspired by Imany’s song “Take Care”, aiming at conveying through dance a call for unity and encouragement among people.

The project has taken the form of a video dance directed by Andi Xhuma and will be openly disseminated through international social platforms and channels on Saturday, June 20. On the same day, the dancers will perform live with the participation of the audience in various, symbolically significant places in the center of Athens as well as Flux Laboratory Athens (12 Geronta str., Plaka). 

Drawing upon the recent solidarity demonstrated by the global community and people’s strength to applaud healthcare workers during the period of confinement, the audience is invited once again to sing and, symbolically, applaud as another gesture for solidarity and unity.

In compliance with the safety guidelines pertinent to social-distancing in the pandemic, the audience is kindly asked to follow the performances, wearing a mask or scarf. During the performance at Flux Laboratory Athens, the participants are encouraged to stand around the perimeter of the building, enjoying the piece through its open doors.

Flux Laboratory produces transdisciplinary artistic projects and experiments with new creative and collaborative processes. Since 2016, Flux Laboratory supports and produces projects in Greece under the auspices of the Embassy of Switzerland in Greece. The research core of Flux programming in Athens is the Body itself. The Body is being explored as an integral tool of artistic creation, a source of knowledge and experience as well as a dynamic element that underpins the concept of social cohesion and community development.

Samsung Electronics Hellas, British Council, and INNOVATHENS Powered by Samsung organize the fascinating webinar “New Experiences using Natural Language Processing in Artificial Intelligence” on Friday, 19 June 2020, at 19.00. The webinar will be live-streamed through the British Council’s and INNOVATHENS’ Facebook pages.

 

Natural Language Processing has been the subject of intensive research and an object of high hopes for decades. Yet, most of us still do not see any spectacular tangible results like eloquent androids or omnipotent AI present in popular Hollywood movies. Still, many companies advertise their AI systems as truly intelligent.

What is the truth? Has anything changed in the NLP area recently? To what extent do we actually use NLP in our life and what exactly is it? Do computers really understand human language? What does “understanding human language” actually mean and what are its potential implications? Finally, what can we expect from the NLP technologies in the close future, and should we be afraid of it? Dr. Lukasz Slabinski will try to answer these questions from the perspective of Samsung Electronics, a company that is one of the largest producers of intelligent consumer electronics. Mr. Kostas Karpouzis will be the moderator of the webinar.

Participation is free.

The science talk will be live-streamed through British Council’s and INNOVATHENS’ Facebook pages.

Dr. Lukasz Slabinski is the Head of the Artificial Intelligence Department at Samsung R&D Institute in Poland. He and his team work in various AI areas like NLP, Data Analytics, and Computer Vision to bring new AI-powered functionalities to Samsung’s global customers. Before joining Samsung, Dr. Slabinski worked as a scientist in research institutes, as a university assistant professor, and as an entrepreneur in his own start-up company – always exploring how AI can aid people in their lives.

Kostas Karpouzis is currently an Associate Researcher at the Institute of Communication and Computer Systems (ICCS) of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) in Greece. His research interests lie in the areas of human-computer interaction, emotion understanding (Ph.D. thesis in Greek [PDF]), affective and natural interaction, serious games, and games based assessment and learning. Since 1998 he has participated in 15 research projects at Greek and European level; most notably the Humaine Network of Excellence, within which he completed his post-doc in the field of mapping signals to signs of emotion, and the FP7 TeL Siren project (Technical Manager), which was voted Best Learning Game in Europe for 2013 by the Games and Learning Alliance Network of Excellence. He is an elected member of the Executive Committee of the Association for the Advancement of Affective Computing (formerly Humaine Association) and the Student Activities Chair for IEEE Greece. He’s also a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal on Multimodal User Interfaces (Springer), Personal and Ubiquitous Computing (Springer), and Journal on Synthetic Emotions. 

Following the 3-month shutdown that was imposed by the Greek health authorities to contain the coronavirus outbreak, museums across the country have finally reopened.

 

The Public National Health Organization (EODY) and the Ministry of Culture & Sports have collaborated extensively to ensure a 2 and 1.5-meter distance among all visitors inside and outside respectively, is maintained at all times. Other measures include the mandatory use of protective face masks and an 8-people group tour maximum.

 

The Acropolis Museum President, Professor Dimitris Pantermalis, stated: "the closure of the Acropolis Museum was not only unpredictable, it was a huge shock (...), but ultimately this downtime became rather creative." He said that a lot of maintenance work took place as well as improvements in infrastructure and lighting, so that now "we are moving towards the opening of the museum completely renewed," he noted.

 

eDirector of the National Archaeological Museum, Maria Lagogianni, told ANA-MPA that "we want to ensure employees feel and actually are safe, but also that visitors can enjoy the museum knowing that their health safety is not at risk." Strictly scheduled visits and controlling visitor flow is key to offering a safe museum tour, she underlined.


To read this article in full, please visit: amna.gr

About The Festival 

The Athens & Epidaurus Festival is the foremost public cultural organization in Greece and one of the oldest active festivals in Europe. Spanning 65 years, the Festival has welcomed some of the greatest music, dance, and theatre artists of the international and local scene, attracting large audiences from around the world.

Up to the year 2005, the Festival was held exclusively at the Odeon of Herodes Atticus in Athens and the Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus. In the summer of 2006, five brand-new theatre stages were launched at the Peiraios 260 industrial venue which has since emerged as a major springboard for contemporary art. Furthermore, artistic productions and site-specific performances are presented in other venues all over the Attica region, under the banner of the Festival.

Nowadays, the Odeon of Herodes Atticus focuses on music, with special emphasis on celebrated orchestras and famous soloists, while the Peiraios 260 venue highlights the latest trends in theatre and dance, inviting internationally acclaimed, avant-garde creative teams, and commissioning new works by talented Greek artists.

The Ancient Theatre of Epidaurus features primarily ancient tragedies and comedies by established Greek and international directors. Meanwhile, the Little Theatre of Ancient Epidaurus, whose reins were gradually handed over to the Athens & Epidaurus Festival by the Friends of Music Society in the early 2000s, focuses on experimental music and musical/theatrical performances.

Under its current Artistic Director Katerina Evangelatos, the Athens & Epidaurus Festival aims to expand its international scope through co-productions with world-renowned theatre and dance companies, as well as showcasing Greek artists, supporting artistic research in the area of performing arts, and connecting research with audience development.

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XpatAthens is proud to be a Media Sponsor of the Athens & Epidaurus Festival

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Athens Photo Festival and the Benaki Museum on 25 May agreed on new dates for the Festival, in 2020. Athens Photo Festival will be held from 16 September to 15 November 2020. Additionally, as a result of difficulties experienced by applicants due to the coronavirus outbreak, the deadline for submissions has been extended to 30 June 2020.

The Festival is accepting submissions from artists and photographers for its exhibition program. The selected works will be exhibited at the Benaki Museum / Pireos 138, one of the most prestigious museums in Greece.

The Festival will feature the work of emerging and established artists from all over the world, with the aim to reflect the diversity of photography and visual culture today. Exploring diverse cultural, artistic, social, and political perspectives, Athens Photo Festival is committed to offering a dynamic platform for the exchange of ideas, artistic expression, and engagement with photography in all its forms.

The call is open to all the image-based genres, ranging from fine art and conceptual to documentary and photojournalism, installations, interactive and multimedia works. This year's exhibition program will be composed of a diverse selection of over 80 image-based projects, selected through this international call for proposals.

Athens Photo Festival will continue to follow the updates on COVID-19 closely, while adhering to the guidelines put forward by our governments, to ensure the measures we take will help protect our artists, teams, and audience.

The festival was founded in 1987 on the initiative of Stavros Moresopoulos, under the name International Month of Photography in Athens, as a biennial event. It is the longest-running festival of photography in Greece, and one of the five oldest of its kind in the world. In 1997, the festival turned into an annual event. In 2008, it was officially renamed to Athens Photo Festival in order to reflect upon the festival’s expanding program which now embraced a wide range of events that are completely in tune with today’s social and aesthetics needs.

Throughout the years, the festival has remained faithful to its founding purpose, raising audiences awareness of photography and acting as a catalyst for lens-based practice within Greece and a showcase for contemporary trends, a new talent from all over the world, and the very best of Greek photography. The extensive documentation from its over 30-year history of festival activities, including photos, texts, and information about the artists will be soon available online on this website.

"Greek Summer is a state of mind… This year, enjoy your Greek summer wherever you are…" is the message of the most recent Greek tourism campaign.

 

The campaign was presented last week at Cine Aegli open-air cinema in Athens. It included the screening of the campaign's new video to representatives of tourism organizations, politicians, the media, and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.

According to Marketing Greece CEO Ioanna Dretta, the campaign aims to send a positive message and inspire travelers around the world to come to Greece whenever possible.

 

"Through the campaign we aim to create a lasting expectation. To build a new brand and create a desire (for travel) that can be fulfilled for all once the conditions allow it. The Greek summer will always be here," Dretta stated before the screening.

To read this article in full, please visit: gtp.gr

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