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Athens School of Fine Arts
Workers are still converting textile machinery rooms into art studios here at the Athens School of Fine Arts, housed in what was once the Sikiaridis family's bustling textile factory on Pireos street. This weathered industrial facade you're looking at? It's Greece's most prestigious art school, and it's got quite the circular history. Back in 1837, this very same Pireos street housed the school's very first temporary location - just a borrowed residence where Sunday classes began. Here's what tourists never realize: this place introduced photography courses in the 1840s, making it one of Europe's most avant-garde art schools before anyone even knew what avant-garde meant! Step inside these converted factory halls where thread once spun, and you'll find the studios where modern Greek art was born. The high industrial ceilings that once echoed with looms now echo with creative passion. Four brave women broke through these doors in 1910 - the very first female art students in Greece. That revolutionary spirit? Still spinning strong after 188 years.
Did You Know?
- The Athens School of Fine Arts (ASFA) was founded in 1836—almost the same year as the modern Greek state—and began as a free, one-year Sunday school open to students of all ages and backgrounds, teaching everything from geometric drawing to calligraphy, with its first principal being a Bavarian engineer, Friedrich von Zentner.
- The school’s main campus is housed in a beautifully restored 20th-century textile factory at 256 Pireos Street, a prime example of industrial architecture, which now includes a massive exhibition space, a cinema, and a theatre, while its historic headquarters remain in a neoclassical building on Patission Street—blending Greece’s industrial and artistic heritage under one roof.
- A unique feature of ASFA is its studio system: the Department of Fine Arts is organized around individual art studios, each with its own artistic philosophy and syllabus, allowing students to freely switch studios in search of their personal creative voice—a rare approach that reflects the pluralism and freedom central to modern Greek art education.