If you find yourself in Patision these days, on a height between the Archaeological Museum and the Polytechnic University, you will see this part of the city in all its usual, but also pre-holiday tension: clothing stores, cafes, educational institutions, pharmacies, all work with the morning rhythms of winter, which, difficult or easy, must somehow pass.

For one building it seems that it will pass and probably be lost: for the former Acropolis Palace Hotel on the corner of Patision and Averof streets, which, although restored many years ago, is included in the layout of the Ministry of Culture, which wants it was merged. with the Archaeological Museum and dedicated to the teaching and creation of artists, it remains closed and empty. Okay, sheet metal no longer surrounds it. But now, as can be seen from a simple autopsy, its walls are decorated with slogans: for the metro in Exarchia, for the “occupation army” that invaded the square, etc.

Much ink, well-intentioned and malevolent, has been shed on the past and future of the Acropolis. For its construction in 1926-1928 according to the designs of Sotirios Maiasis in the Art Nouveau style, for its carnival dances and revues, for filming the uprising of the Polytechnic Institute from its balconies, for its inclusion in the list of architectural monuments in 1991 and, of course, for its restoration in 2013, which was completed with a thousand efforts; for the creation in 2020 of the Center for Culture and Creativity “Acropolis Akros”; for hopes that it will be operational in 2022; for how creatively he could transform the surroundings – the simple autopsy we talked about also leads the imagination in this direction, but nothing more.

After a related question, the only information “K” had from the Ministry of Culture was that in March last year, after much effort, Akropolis Akros joined the Operational Program “Competitiveness – Entrepreneurship – Innovation” (EPANEK) to ensure funding his equipment, a time-consuming process. In a recent interview with Lifo (1.11.22), Minister of Culture Lina Mendoni said that the project of association with the museum could start after the completion of the relevant studies, in about a year and a half.

I agree, it’s bureaucracy. But why does it also set the tone for the Acropolis issue? The slogans on its walls, if allowed, are not so much a problem – they are written, erased, but life goes on in a city that does not resemble a shiny shop window, but a polyphonic canvas – as a consequence of a situation that finds the “pearl” of Patision constantly postponed, lifeless and, thus , it is almost impossible to convince that this is anything more than a beautiful, affordable wall.