Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts 1989
Area of Work: Preservation of Ancient Monuments
Date: 08 November 1989
Place of Ceremony: Edgerton Lecture Hall
Host Institution: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Host Country: Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, November 1989. The World Cultural Council presented the 1989 Leonardo da Vinci World Award of Arts to the Athens Acropolis Preservation Group of Greece. The Official Awarding Ceremony took place at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which acted as host for the event this year.
The 1989 award to the Acropolis Preservation Group recognizes a concerted effort that began in 1964 when the Greek government decided to conserve the monuments on the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, after they were found to be beset by fractures and breaks and changes in the surface of the marble.
The ongoing work of evaluation and preservation has been carried out by specialists who include archaeologists, architects, civil engineers and chemists, under the sponsorship of the Hellenic State assisted by international agencies.
A description of the work notes that the Acropolis gives “the impression of being a huge building site, with the monuments partly disassembled, scaffolding everywhere, machines and workmen, presenting a picture doubtless similar to that obtained in the age of Pericles when the unique architectural complex was created.”
It continues: “Most of the marble comes from the Greek islands, where there is an age-old tradition of working marble; they now continue the work of their ancestors, using the same methods and same tools, not indeed to create but rather to save a masterpiece which belongs not only to the Greeks but to all humanity.”
