The Ethnographic Museum of Arachova
is
housed in an old building of neoclassical style at a conspicuous
location in the centre of today’s town, next to the impressive rock
occupied by the clock tower of “Ora”. It was built in 1908 thanks to a
donation by the great Greek donor Andreas Syngros, in a plot offered by
the Arachova Municipality, so as to be used as Elementary School. It
thus replaced the village’s old, first Elementary School, which was
built at Arachova in 1830, funded by state money at the time of Governor
Ioannis Kapodistrias, but also thanks to the Arachova people’s personal
work and money collected through fundraising.
The construction of the School started on the 21st June of
1909 and was completed two years later. It consisted of two large
rectangular rooms on either side of a central hall, two lateral rooms
located symmetrically on its northern and southern sides, as well as a
frontal long columned porch. A separate oblong room was located on the
building’s northern side. Several interventions were done at the
building during the School’s long history, in order to improve certain
elements. In 1984, it was decided by the Minister of Culture Melina
Merkouri that Arachova’s old Elementary School had to be preserved as a
heritage monument, “as a building directly connected with the city’s
modern history”.
In 2003 the building finally stopped working as a School, since a new
Elementary School was constructed on the western side of Arachova. The
building of the old Elementary School was renovated in 2009. The works
were co-funded by the European Union and Greece so that the building
could be used as a Museum and workshop area for traditional and artistic
activities. At the same time, the northern room was fully renovated and
turned into a modern amphitheatre, a venue for scientific seminars and
conferences, while restoration works were also done at the canteen in
the building’s courtyard, on the way to the clock tower of “Ora”.
Today, the old Elementary School building, fully restored and
renovated, houses Arachova’s Ethnographic Museum and Workshops of
Traditional Arts, thus advancing our hometown’s traditional culture.
Source and for more information at www.arachovamuseum.gr