Description of the attraction
The picturesque port city of Volos is an important cultural and tourist center of Greece. Magnificent nature, excellent beaches, a variety of all kinds of entertainment, as well as an abundance of interesting historical and cultural sights of the city and its environs will diversify your vacation and deliver a lot of unforgettable impressions.
One of the main attractions of Volos is the Kitsos Makris Folk Art Center. The building in which the museum is located, and most of the unique collection presented in it previously belonged to the famous Greek historian and ethnographer Kitsos Makris.
Two-storey building with an area of 180 sq.m. was built in 1955 by the architect Phillipidis Agiris and is designed in the traditional style of the region. In 1988, after the death of Kitsos Makris, following his will, the relatives donated the collection and the house to the University of Thessaly on the condition that an Ethnographic Museum and Research Center would be organized here.
The museum exposition presents household utensils, various tools, ceramics, jewelry, fragments of wall paintings, paintings, prints, icons (including post-Byzantine ones) and other church relics, clothing, embroidery, furniture, musical instruments and much more. Most of the exhibits are collected from different parts of the Pelion Peninsula and mainly date back to the 18-19th centuries. Among the most valuable and interesting exhibits, it is worth highlighting the works of the artist Theophilos Hadzimikhail, the magnificent frescoes of Athanasios Pagonis and the works of Nikolos Christopulus. There are also works by contemporary Greek artists such as Theologos, Geskos and Malamos.
The Folk Art Center has a splendid library containing about 4,000 rare books, important historical documents, 2,500 slides and 4,000 photographs that perfectly illustrate the development of the culture and traditions of Pelion.
The Kitsos Makris Folk Art Center is rightfully considered one of the best museums of its kind, and the exposition presented in the museum is one of the most significant and interesting collections of folk art in Greece.
