Academy of Athens

The Academy is the finest of the three buildings known as the Athenian Trilogy, built along Panepistimiou Street in the second half of the nineteenth century by the Danish architects Theophil and Christian Hansen: the Academy in the middle, the University to one side and the National Library to the other, all in Pentelic marble in a strict neoclassical idiom. The Academy's facade copies the Erechtheion's Ionic order, and in front of it stand two tall columns bearing statues of Apollo and Athena, with seated figures of Socrates and Plato below. The pediment carries a coloured relief of the birth of Athena, painted in the polychrome scheme that scholars of the period believed ancient temples used, which makes the building unusually vivid among white neoclassical facades.

History

The Academy of Athens, whose name recalls Plato's ancient Academy, was established as an institution on 18 March 1926, and its charter, ratified by law in 1929, still governs it, dividing it into three Orders: Natural Sciences, Letters and Arts, and Moral and Political Sciences; today it runs 14 research centres, and in 2002 its Foundation for Biomedical Research was set up (Wikipedia, Academy of Athens (modern)).

What's there

• The Apollo and Athena columns - the pair of tall columns before the facade.
• The painted pediment - a polychrome relief of the birth of Athena.
• The seated philosophers - Socrates and Plato at the foot of the steps.
• The Trilogy - the University and National Library flanking it on the street.

When to go

Any time; the exterior is the attraction and is best photographed in morning light from across Panepistimiou. The interior opens for lectures and occasional events rather than general visits.

Things to know

Panepistimiou is a busy traffic street, so photographs include cars and wires, and the buildings are seen from the pavement or the steps. The interiors are not a public museum. Demonstrations occasionally close the street.

Nearby

Syntagma Square lies southeast; the National Archaeological Museum is north up Patission.

Key facts