Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation

That gleaming glass facade you see before you hides five floors buried deep underground, a testament to the stubborn underground springs that nearly killed this museum before it ever opened. For twenty-seven years, Basil and Elise Goulandris fought Athens itself to build their dream... first blocked by the discovery of Aristotle's ancient Lyceum, then by angry neighbors, and finally by water that refused to stop flowing beneath your feet. What makes this building truly extraordinary is the marriage hiding in plain sight. The original 1930s structure you see incorporated into the left side was deemed too precious to demolish, so architects wrapped it in contemporary glass and steel, creating eleven floors where old Athens literally embraces the new. Step inside and you'll discover that five of those floors plunge underground, housing a library containing Basil and Elise's personal collection of six thousand art books. The masterpiece that changes everything depending on when you visit? Van Gogh's 'Olive Picking' from 1889, which transforms dramatically as Athenian light shifts throughout the day. When local Pangrati schoolchildren became the first official visitors in October 2019, they were witnessing the birth of Greece's most ambitious private art collection, finally free after nearly three decades of beautiful, stubborn persistence. Sometimes the greatest treasures are worth the longest wait.