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Villa Bianca (Thessaloniki)

Buildings and structures in ThessalonikiEclectic architectureEclectic architecture in GreeceJews and Judaism in ThessalonikiMuseums in Thessaloniki
Casa Bianca
Casa Bianca

Villa Bianca or Villa Fernandez is the name of a famous mansion in the city of Thessaloniki, Greece. It is located in Vassilisis Olgas street and was built between 1911 and 1913 as a residence for Dino Fernandez Diaz and his family. The architect was Pietro Arrigoni (variously also spelled: Piero/Pierro Arigon/Arrigon/Arigoni).Of Sephardi (Spanish) Jewish origin, Fernandez was a wealthy merchant and industrialist of the city. The villa passed to his daughter, where she lived with her Christian husband, and was later confiscated and used by the Germans during the Axis occupation of Greece. To escape from the Nazis, Dino Fernandez Diaz, with other members of his family, fled to Italy, but they were murdered in 1943 by the German SS near Como Lake. The building has elements of eclecticist architecture, like many other buildings of that period in the city. Since 2013 it houses the Municipal Art Gallery.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Villa Bianca (Thessaloniki) (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Villa Bianca (Thessaloniki)
Βασιλίσσης Όλγας, Thessaloniki Municipal Unit Ντεπώ (5th District of Thessaloniki)

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N 40.5965 ° E 22.9557 °
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Casa Bianca

Βασιλίσσης Όλγας 182
546 46 Thessaloniki Municipal Unit, Ντεπώ (5th District of Thessaloniki)
Macedonia and Thrace, Greece
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Casa Bianca
Casa Bianca
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Municipal Art Gallery (Thessaloniki)
Municipal Art Gallery (Thessaloniki)

The Municipal Art Gallery of the Municipality of Thessaloniki in Central Macedonia, Greece was founded in 1966 as an offshoot of the Municipal Library. Since 1986 it has been housed in the Villa Mordoch on Vassilissis Olgas Avenue, a mansion designed by the architect Xenophon Paionidis in the eclectic style in 1905 and owned by the Municipality of Thessaloniki. Since 2013 it is housed in Villa Bianca, also on Vassilissis Olgas Avenue. It also uses the Makridis Room near the Posidonio sports centre on the sea front and the old Archaeological Museum (Yeni Cami) as permanent exhibition spaces. The gallery has more than 1,000 works in its collection, and these are divided into the Thessalonian Artists Collection (3 generations: 1898–1922, 1923–40, 1941–67), the Modern Greek Engraving Collection, the Collection of Byzantine and Postbyzantine Icons, which covers a period of six centuries, the Modern Greek Art Collection, and the Sculpture Collection. The gallery organises regular (mainly retrospective) exhibitions of Greek artists, produces numerous publications, has a specialised library-cum-reading-room, and offers guided tours for the public (booked in advance). Since 1986 it has held 55 exhibitions of Greek and foreign artists. One of its aims is to jointly organise exhibitions with major visual arts institutions in Greece and abroad. Thus it has presented such artists as Max Ernst and Nikos Engonopoulos (in 1997), Theofilos Hatzimichail (in 1998), and, for the first time in Greece, the works of Nikolaos Gyzis owned by his family (in late 1999). The latter include drawings and oil paintings from Gyzis’’s travels in Greece, Asia Minor, and Germany, family portraits and scenes, allegorical subjects, genre paintings, and still lives. The immediate aims of the Municipal Gallery include converting the second and third floors of the Villa Bianca into permanent exhibition spaces for works by Thessalonian artists and its collection of Byzantine icons.