Filenews 21 February 2022
The Municipality of Limassol attempts to highlight the enormous importance of the Museum, considering it as the place of hospitality of culture and knowledge. Thus, it proceeds to the creation of four new museums, while implementing its general policy to upgrade the city with targeted projects. Here we should also recall the recent announcement for the creation of municipal and cultural infrastructure in the Epaminondas block. Mayor Nikos Nikolaidis spoke to us about the four new museums.
The museum of sports history of GSO
it will be a museum of "Living History", where the physical presence of sports people in the museum itself will serve as a "living testimony" of those who will report through their own experiences, memories and objects. According to the relevant study, permanent and periodic museum collections will be exhibited here, which will be exhibited live and via the Internet. The exhibition activity of the Museum of Sports will be accompanied by publications, museum-pedagogical programs and parallel social and cultural events. An important element of the permanent exhibition will be multimedia and modern technologies. One of the museum's goals is also to create an innovative digital library that will feed into the study of classic sports and football. In the exterior area of the Museum, additional sports areas will be designed based on the museum's themes.
The mayor says that our City Council has included in the 2022 Budgets and 23 the amount of €700,000 for the construction of the Museum. The aim is to start the construction of the Museum in the fall of this year, and to be ready to open its doors in 2024.
Museum of the House of Christos Papadopoulos
A tender for the renovation and redevelopment of the two-storey listed historic building on the city's coastal boulevard was announced by the Limassol Municipality, which came under the ownership of the municipality after the large donation made by its last owners, Christos and Konstantia Papadopoulou. It is the building of the Consul of Spain Leonidas K. Papadopoulos, which is one of the few buildings of the Ottoman era that survived to this day. The building is located at the junction of Jerusalem Street and 28th October Coastal Avenue.
According to the mayor, this museum will exhibit personal relics and/or objects that belonged to Leonidas Papadopoulos and came into the possession and/or property of his children Konstantias Papadopoulou and Christos Papadopoulos. The upper floor residence will be used by the Limassol Municipality for cultural and educational purposes and will also bear the name of the donor father, Leonidas Papadopoulos. The remaining open spaces will be used by the municipal authority as a park.
The cost of the project is estimated at €3 million. including VAT and is expected to be completed in about 2 years from the approval of the tenders.
History Museum and Historical Archive of the Limassol Cooperative Savings Bank
In the hands of the Limassol Municipality is now the Museum of History and Historical Archive of the Limassol Cooperative Savings Bank, which was delivered by SEDIPES, Asset Management Company of the former Cyprus Cooperative Bank. The STL Museum - the mayor stresses - documents step by step the history and the multifaceted action of an institution that inextricably linked its name, like no other banking institution, with Limassol, on an economic, social, cultural, philanthropic, athletic and environmental level and which became synonymous with the city and with the very people of our city. He also suggested that in addition to the material exhibited in the Museum, there is also important archival material of the Historical Archive of the STL, which is stored in other areas.
All this archival material, he added, are, with the agreement we signed, part of the material delivered to the Limassol Municipality for further evaluation and use for the completion of the Museum.
The Museum of the Limassol Carnival - It will be housed in the Panos Solomonidis Cultural Center.
The special team to which the offer was awarded prepared a study on the exhibition space and the thematic units that it will include, through which the visitor will be able to follow the historical development of the Limassol carnival from its beginnings until today, the way that Limassol celebrated and celebrates the carnival, but also the way of participation of the various social strata of the city, over time. The visitor will also be able to have a participatory opportunity, which will be offered by the use of the most modern electronic technology and interactive programs.
The workshops for the creation of masks and carnival costumes, the design and execution of constructions and chariots will be an important asset and in this regard the creation of an elevated shelter on the roof of the building will be studied for the formation of new exhibition spaces that allow the hosting of large-sized structures and chariots.
It is worth noting that several carnivalists have long raised the necessity of creating a Carnival Museum, which will be part of the history of the city, but also of the whole of Cyprus.
The Limassol Carnival has over 150 years of history and should have the place it deserves, concluded the mayor. Tenders for the construction works for the Museum, which will open in early 2024, are expected in the coming days.
