ATHENS.- The Herakleidon Museum is celebrating its tenth anniversary with the opening of a new space for art and culture. Known for its permanent collections of works by M.C. Escher and V. Vasarely, as well as its educational programs that bridge art with mathematics and science, the Herakleidon Museum is now opening a new center of activities, a short distance from the main building.

This is a beautifully restored neoclassical building facing the pedestrian street of Apostolou Pavlou, near the archaeological site and the metro station of Thissio.

The Herakleidon Museum annex aims to enrich the cultural life of Athens, while complementing and expanding the main direction of the museum. It opened to the general public on Friday, October 17, 2014 with an extensive tribute to the city of Athens, to celebrate the 180 years since it was proclaimed the capital of Greece.

The photo exhibition Metamorphoses of Athens-A Photographic Itinerary 1839-1950 is a unique tour of the development of the Greek capital, through rare archival material of the photograph historian and collector Haris Yiakoumis.

The visitor will be able to follow the many construction phases of Athens and reflect on the constant changes of the urban landscape. Well-known landmarks of Athens, large public neoclassical buildings, street scenes, the hills and the historical landscape of the city are presented as they have changed over the years, which inevitably makes one think of today.

The exhibition includes more than one hundred authentic photographs, some of which date to the beginnings of the photographic art, and will be on show until the end of January 2015. The itinerary is enriched with panoramic views of Athens in large format, old cameras and seven stereoscopes, two of which are amazing apparatus of the time that allow the visitor to look at fifty photographs by turning a lever.

The exhibition is complemented by a small selection of contemporary photographs of Athens taken by journalist and student of Athens Nikos Vatopoulos, a section that functions as an epilogue and a bridge with the present.

For the visitors who would like to keep the experience of this photographic itinerary alive, there is a 200-page catalog with most of the photographs of the exhibition, as well as a selection of photo reproductions, printed on a state-of-the-art EPSON printer and ready for framing. These reproductions have been printed on an EPSON Stylus Pro 3880 and are ideal for anyone who wants to enjoy the high quality of a genuine reproduction, as only Epson printers can certifiably produce.