Fassianos Visual Arts Museum

N. Metaxa & Chiou Sts, 1990-95

Architect
Kyriakos Krokos (1941-98)



This museum has resulted from the conversion of an impersonal Athenian apartment building of the 1970s into a space for exhibiting the works of the owner, popular painter Alekos Fassianos, and four independent residences. It is one of the last and most representative Athenian works of the late Kyriakos Krokos. The product of the empirical concerns, visual sensitivity and eclecticist kinship of the architect with his painter-client, this private museum harmonises its architectural form and content in an original way, and contributes at the same time to upgrading the region of Vathis Square.
The Fassianos exhibition area-museum occupies the ground floor, two storeys high, the loft and the basement. These areas communicate by means of a spiral stairway. The four floors above contain four apartments. The handling of the natural light is of particular interest. In contact with the renovated open space, a vertical light well was created that brings in natural light as far as the ground floor and is housed in a glass structure at the level of the ground floor ceiling.
The materials used here are bare concrete, stone masonry, plaster, metal and glass. The quality of the combination of materials and colours gives this private museum its special character. The façades were renovated in a spare, plastic mood.

TRANSPORTATION