On November 30, the “open museum” will open its doors to the passenger public
Time is counting down for the opening of his impressive Venizelos station Thessaloniki Metro. The website brings a first taste to the public today Voria.gr.
The images published are from levels -1 and -2 of the station, where all the antiquities are exhibited. It is an “open museum”, which will open its gates to the city’s public on November 30, as already announced by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis himself.
“He’s fantastic! You all know what the reaction of the people will be when they see the Venizelos station. This is something unique in the world. I don’t want to describe to you what I saw. Be patient. I don’t want to say. This is something fantastic,” said Carsten Rasmussen, head of the Greece-Cyprus department of the Commission’s Directorate-General for Regional Policy and Urban Development (DG REGIO).
Before reaching the dock on level -4, which is the last one, 30 meters underground, the passenger “travels” through the city’s diverse history, since it “connects” with the imposing evidence of its timelessness from the very first moments that enters the station. The purpose of attending it will not only be movement, but also cultural wandering, in the form of a visit to a living monumental space, which, however, for the first time, will be located underground and not above it, in the bowels of a modern and bustling metropolis.
Almost all of the previously detached archaeological finds, which are now highlighted by both ceiling and floor lighting, have returned to their original position and the visitor can view them by walking over them, in a single glass and transparent suspended floorswhich act as access corridors, like walking paths.
The architecture of the first two levels, and especially of the second, which constitutes the main archaeological chamber, gives the ability to move over the antiquitiesbut also hers attitude and observationon small ones floating “balconies”, where anyone can stop by to look at and photograph the impressive finds.
Day by day and piece by piece, the incomparable archaeological site is reconstructed and highlighted. A month before the official opening of the project, the final works are being carried out at a feverish pace for the most ideal display of the antiquities, the first stone of which was set in July 2021, after a turbulent period, with a lot of polemic, stemming from the prolonged controversy over the ways of building the station and highlighting the findings.
At Venizelos station, the area of which is 1,260 sq.m., the archaeological research covered at least 3,500 sq.m., bringing to light all of the oldest building and time phases of Thessaloniki, from the Hellenistic years.
Specifically, it came to light the Roman and Hellenistic road Decumanus maximus or otherwise Byzantine Middle Roadas well as one great building ensemble of the urban fabric of late antiquity.
In the context of the construction of the Thessaloniki metro, a project that costs a lot of money and time, it was carried out the largest excavation research of a rescue nature that has ever been carried out in the countrycontributing to the reconstruction of the history of the city from its foundation, in the years of Kassander, at the end of the 4th century. B.C. until the beginning of the 20th century, with most and most important antiquities emerging in Agia Sofia and Venizelos stations.
“With absolute respect for the institutional framework and the archaeological law, but also for the needs of Thessaloniki and its inhabitants, we are completing an extremely complex archaeological project”, the Minister of Culture had stated, Lina Mendoni, during her last visit to Venizelos station, adding:
“We preserve and highlight the evidence of the city’s long history – from its founding by Cassandros to the last centuries – with pioneering and innovative solutions, utilizing modern techniques and technologies.”
The difficult task of removing and repositioning the antiquities was undertaken by the architect’s team Dimitris Korre who has carried out large projects in the archaeological area, while he himself is used to saying that “no one will know that the works have been moved.”
