In the 1930s, the Italian embassy in Athens moved into the Megaro Psyche on Vassilissis Sofias Avenue, a building designed by Ziller that had until then been used as the Petit Palais Hotel.
Even today, in the building that still houses the Italian embassy, there is a room that has remained unchanged over time, but is hardly used. It was in this office that Grazzi drafted the famous ultimatum of October 28, 1940. At the same time, a reception was held in the palm garden in honor of Puccini’s son.
It was to this building that the spontaneous protests of the Athenians were directed on the morning of October 28, 1940. From that moment on, a particular palace passes into the field of public history. This is a landmark of the city, inextricably linked with the history of our country.
In the years following the war, Athenians look back at the building and remember the excitement of the Greeks in those days, and what followed. Europe after the Second World War was taught a bloody lesson: no military confrontation brings solutions to problems. Based on these memories left by the war, European peoples worked closely together and collaborated for the progress and development of their societies. Thus was founded the European Community (EU), which later became the European Union.
Today, the generations that survived the war of the 1940s are almost gone. The building of the Italian Embassy still functions as a historical landmark. It remains in our public historical memory, although with a different meaning than the original.
On the other hand, there are no permanent mechanisms in our educational system that would use monuments and architectural works in an empirical approach to the historical past. As image and experience become increasingly important in the process of perceiving and understanding historical events, it is time to adjust our teaching standards in this direction. Among other things, the study of the history of buildings, which, although they are present in the present, at the same time, in their unique way, “transfer” us to the past.
*Spyros Vlahopoulos, Professor, Faculty of Law, Hellenic Academy of Sciences
**Athanassios Balerbas, Doctor of Architecture EMP
Source: Kathimerini
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