Why Visit the Benaki Museum in Athens?

Benaki Museum of Greek Culture

The most popular building to visit is the Benaki Museum of Greek Culture, found near the Hellenic Parliament. It houses the permanent collections: Prehistoric, Roman, and Ancient Greek art. There are 33,000 items in the museum, which show the Greek state from antiquity until the creation of the modern Greek state and to the Asia Minor catastrophe in 1922. The benefactor of the museum, Antonis Benakis, was a wealthy cotton trader and donated his mansion for the collection to be shown. It is a gorgeous neoclassical building and was one of the only ones that survived the post-war destruction in Athens.

Antonis Benakis

It is certain that Antonis Benakis, the founder of the Benaki Museum, was also influenced by the example of his father Emmanuel Benakis (1843-1929). A close friend and colleague of the great statesman Eleftherios Venizelos (1864-1936), Emmanuel Benakis placed his fortune at the disposal of numerous charitable foundations and likewise contributed to the settlement of refugees in the aftermath of the catastrophe in Asia Minor.

Benaki Toy Museum

The Benaki Museum is not just found in 1 building, but in 10 separate venues. In Athens, the venues are spread all over the city as far south as Piraeus. A crowd favorite is the Toy Museum, which has a permanent exhibit called “Childhood, Toys, and Games”. It features toys from antiquity until modern times, both in Greece and from Africa and the East. The majority of toys are from country festivals, 20th-century commercial products, team sports, board games, and seasonal games. The European segment of the exhibit has dolls from the 17th to the 20th century, many of them from France and Germany.

Benaki Museum / Pireos 138

Pireos 138is a venue for contemporary art, photography, design, and fashion exhibitions. It has the largest shop of contemporary Greek design in Athens. The building is located on the site of a former car repair shop, so it is symbolic of the changing face of Athens. When you visit, you must see the Modern Greek Architecture collection, which follows the story of Athens’s building design.

The Ghika Gallery

Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghika is one of the most important Greek painters from the 20th century. The Ghika Gallery shows his works from 1930 to 1990. The modernist building used for the exhibition was designed by the famous architect Konstantinos Kitsikis, who rebuilt the city of Thessaloniki after the 1917 fire. The gallery started on the 4th floor of the building, but now has expanded to fill the whole building. Ghika’s works are also found in London’s Tate Gallery, Paris’s Musée d’Art Moderne and New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.