The Parthenon is a classic piece of architecture and one of the most prominent buildings for architects to draw inspiration from. Standing for over 2,000 years, this building is mentioned in textbooks, stories, and every tourist pamphlet of Athens. When one envisions the Parthenon, one might also envision the busy streets of Athens and overlooking this ordinary hustle and bustle will stand a powerful monument of history.
The busy streets were not really hard to imagine. Athens is mostly built around the old city layout and the old city planning adds an extra element of congestion to the streets. I remember walking from the metro and making my way up the hillside to witness the Parthenon and its glory up close. As I make it up the last flight of stairs and dodge the last of the oncoming waves of descending tourist mobs, I am finally facing the Parthenon. The sheer amount of scaffolding, the back brace for a crumbling structure, made it to be one of the most anticlimactic moments of my life. The support columns were held up with smaller units of support, those in turn were jammed into the structure for even further support and reinforcement. The architecture was held together with countless metal sutures that simply detracted from it all.
Not to say I can’t appreciate a building that has stood for so long, but seeing it on display in such a manner was disheartening. Crowded by camera flashes and random security guards asking tourists to back away from the barrier, the Parthenon in my opinion has been reduced to postcard material and nobody even sends postcards anymore. Standing there I felt as if I had witnessed an elderly Greek man plugged into a life support system as random physicians huddled around him as they plug in more technology and more chemicals just to keep the man’s heart pumping.
It’s sad to witness such a monument to be subjected to the test of time, but I guess even the Colosseum or my great grandfather needs a support system to stand up straight anymore. Tradition and history can only be preserved for so long before it loses to its battle with time, but who will dictate when we pull the plug?
