Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Centre, Athens, Greece

Architects: Renzo Piano Building Workshop
Text: Eszter Götz
Photos: Michel Denancé

In 2006, the Stavros Niarchos Foundation announced its plans to fund the development of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center. Renzo Piano Building Workshop was selected for the project following an invited competition in 2008. The brief was to transform a former parking lot left over from the 2004 Olympic Games. Located in the Kallithea district in the south of the Greek capital, the cultural centre creates new homes for the National Library of Greece and the Greek National Opera, tucked beneath a new 170,000 square metre sloping park and beside a 400 metre long rectangular lake. Now the complex is complete, the foundation is handing it as a gift to the Greek state, but will continue to contribute to its upkeep.

Architects: Renzo Piano Building Workshop
Executive architect: Betaplan
Landscape: Deborah Nevins and Associates, H Pangalou and Associates
Structural engineer: Expedition and Omete
MEP engineer: Arup and LDK
Acoustics: Arup Acoustics
Theatre design consultants: Theatre Projects Consultants
Library consultants: British Library
Project manager, LEED sustainability and cost consultants: Faithful and Gould