The facilities of the Autonomous Raisin Organization (ASO) in Pyrgos closed permanently in December 1997. Dryers, screens and transport corridors for raisins were permanently closed 25 years ago, which was marked by the Olympia International Film Festival this year. children and youth. The festival, which was inaugurated on December 7 of that year as an audacious venture by Dimitris Spirou, Nikos Theodosiou and Christos Konstantinopoulos, is now considered one of the most important of its kind worldwide. This year alone, more than 10,000 children have watched 79 films from 51 countries, in 12 cities. Already from the first years of the organization’s existence, when the dynamics of the institution became obvious, discussions began about finding a permanent home. The Apollon Theater in Pyrgos, which still hosts a significant part of the action, turned into a cinema hall in just one day in the first year. The screen arrived on a roll at KTEL by special order from England and was fixed on the stage.

For the founders of the Festival, who dreamed and created something so ambitious, without premises and with poor logistical equipment, the restoration and concession of the ASA plant looks like a justification for their efforts. The conference, held at the Xystri theme park on the final day of the 25th festival, featured, among other things, an architectural study prepared by H. Maraveas and Associates IKE for the reuse of an iconic industrial building. In the first half of 2023, the project auction will continue. “If all goes well, the building could be commissioned within the next two years,” said architect Georgia Philippopoulou, a spokesman for the office that signed the study. I looked at the artistic director of the Festival, Dimitris Spirou, he looked like a child welcoming guests to his celebration. For him, this was not just an impressive report on the restoration of another monument of our industrial heritage, it was another step towards the realization of his dream. Touchingly happy, exemplary simple, he took the floor after the official statements of the representatives of the municipal authorities of Pyrgos and the region of Western Greece. “When we talked about this space, I tried to see it fully alive. The factory is all lit up in my head. This means that every square meter has been properly designed…”.

The next day

The factory, built in 1925, next to the railway lines that served the movement of raisins to major ports, occupies a building block and has an area of ​​3 hectares. The complex consists of 8 building volumes, which communicate with each other by a closed low corridor. Of the buildings, the stone Administration Building stands out with its special morphological elements, as well as the two-storey production building, in which most of the mechanical equipment for processing raisins has been preserved. The project provides for a cinema for 400 seats with a combination of two warehouses, a small amphitheater, editing rooms, a recording studio and a film set.