GAZI - TECHNOPOLIS

The Gazi (Gaz) Factory was founded in 1857. It started functioning in 1862 and closed down its furnaces in August 1984. It was the last factory in Europe that was functioning in a traditional way until the day it closed. Today it is converted into the City of Athens Technopolis.

The City of Athens Technopolis, spreads in an area of about 30.000 m2, is a vigorous industrial museum, of incomparable architecture, one of the most interesting of its kind in Europe. It is lodged in the old Athens Gasworks, widely known as Gazi, next to Keramikos and very close to the Acropolis. Its gradual transformation into a multi-purpose cultural center, hosting various events, gives the opportunity to the visitors to tour in a site full of images, knowledge and emotions. The charm of a bygone era, clearly to be seen in the form of the funnels, the gasholders, the chimney stacks and retort furnaces, ?conspires? in a way that establishes the ?Technopolis? as a ?factory? for protecting and generating art, since even in etymological terms the word 'gas' comes from the old German word 'galst' and later 'geist' which means intellect or spirit.
It has been operating since 1999 and it is dedicated to the memory of the great Greek composer Manos Chatzidakis.