The Tennessee Parthenon - Nashville, TENNESSEE

The only replica of the Parthenon of Greece which was built by the city of Nashville for the 1897 Tennessee Centennial and International Exposition, houses a re-creation of the 42-foot statue of Athena which was the Goddess of wisdom of the city of Athens. The Parthenon housed the art exhibition during the centennial, which consisted of more than 1170 pieces of art from all over the world. In 1920 the structure was crumbling and decaying because it had only been built of brick, wood lath and plaster originally. Therefore, the city authorized the reconstruction of the landmark with permanent materials. It was decided rather than duplicate what had been built in 1897, they would rebuild it as a complete full scale replica of the original Greek temple. What had been basement in 1897, became gallery space in order to continue the Nashville's history of exhibiting fine art. In 1931 the Parthenon reopened to the public attracting over 10,000 visitors during it's first month. The Goddess Athena replica stands 42' 10" to the top of her helmet and was unveiled in 1990. She was gilded and painted in 2002 with 8 pounds of 23.75 carat gold. Nike, the goddess of victory, perches on Athena's right hand and stands 6'4" tall. The Parthenon now houses a permanent collection of a group of 63 paintings by 19th and 20th century American artists. These paintings were donated by James M. Cowan after a very successful sixteen day exhibit in Nashville in 1925. When he died in December of 1930, it was found that his Frank Lloyd Wright style house was filled with 500 paintings which he had collected over the years. Seventy one of these paintings were painted by artists represented in the Parthenon's collection. I found the collection to be very interesting. His collection of American art was much more vast than this 63 piece collection in Nashville, but he died before he could have donated any more of his collection. This Parthenon was created with exact attention paid to detail of it's massive columns and dimensions. The double bronze doors in the front are each 7.5 feet wide and 24 foot tall and 1 foot thick . They were built with the circular tracks in the floor which is duplicate of the one in Greece. However, the doors are so well balanced, being constructed of bronze, that the doors here do not need the tracks. This is the outside of the door in the rear of the building . The structure attracts thousands of visitors each year. These are close-up photos of the top of the building in front and in the back, as well as the side view. Educators once considered Nashville to be "Athens of the West" in the 1840's about fifty years before they considered building the replica of the Parthenon. They believed in a classical education and continued it's center of learning with the building of Fisk University in 1866 and Vanderbilt University in 1873 as well as others. However, as the United States expanded west, Nashville became known as the "Athens of the South". Other than the Parthenon, few of the other buildings of the Centennial remain. One exception of this, the Knights of Pythias building, was moved to Franklin, TN where it is a private residence. Before we toured Nashville by Greyline, I was not aware of The Parthenon. I am always excited to learn of something new when sight seeing! However, I am sure that we missed many other things in Nashville and will have to hunt for them the next time we are through here. See you on down the road!