Nashville is known far and wide as Music City, but it’s also the home to a full-size exact replica of the Parthenon in Athens, Geece. How this incredible architectural gem came to be dates back to the pioneer days when Nashville was dubbed the Athens of the South due to its passion for education and the arts.
When the state of Tennessee celebrated its 1897 Centennial exhibition, Nashville contributed the Parthenon to house the Arts building.
Join sculptor Alan LeQuire who created the Parthenon’s 42 foot-tall statue of Athena eight decades after the conclusion of the centennial fair. We’ll then visit with Wesley Paine Director of the Parthenon as she shares the story of the Parthenon’s creation, experiencing the 1897 centennial exhibition, saving and renovating the structure in the 1920s and its function today as Nashville’s gallery of art.
This show was originally recorded in 2017 (Wesley Paine retired from her stellar career in May 2021). This show is reposted as a Best-of-the-Best audio travel show in celebration of Journeys of Discovery’s 32nd anniversary producing radio travel features for NPR affiliate KCBX.
