MENTIS

Client:Benaki Museum

​Design Team : Katerina Vordoni, Fania Sinaniotis, Martha Georgiou-Richter

Photos: VOIS architects

Year of completion: 2011
Location: Kato Petralona, Athens, Greece

 

MENTIS Workshop is a center for the preservation of traditional textile techniques.

  The site of the old workshop at 6,  Polyfimou Street houses the “Mentis Donation”. The donation by Spyros, Marina, and Othon Mentis to the Benaki Museums includes the sum total of all the merchandise in storage, as well as the equipment of the MENTIS fibre manufactory, one of the oldest workshop and commercial enterprises in the country in the field of fibre processing and production of passementerie. 

  For over one-and-a-half centuries, the products of MENTIS Ltd. decorated Greek  costumes and uniforms of all types as well as creations of well-known couturiers in Greece and abroad. When the Mentis family was forced to close the business in 2011, the Benaki Museum accepted the generous offer of the Mentis family, in order to create a space that will be a living workshop / museum.

The goal is to offer visitors an opportunity to learn how a historical workshop functioned; follow every step involved in silk processing and the crafting of masterpieces out of thread, for which the company was renowned.

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