Annaliese Roegner

Professor Watson
ARC 2031
5 October 2023
History Amidst the Parthenon
September 28, 2023, I toured the Parthenon re-creation in Nashville, Tennessee with my
history of architecture class. Leading up to this event I had spent weeks in advance studying the
original Greek structure in both my interior and architecture history classes. Between my recent
studying of the structure, its surrounding period in history, and everything I had learned and
heard up to the experience, caused the moment to be surreal for me. The tour of the Parthenon
pulled together everything I had learned, and brought me clarity, not only about the building but
also the environments in which both the original and the replica were built in.
My immediate reaction to the building was awe. Being able to touch something you’ve
studied for so long and heard so much about is an indescribable experience. I walked on the steps
designed by someone thousands of years before me, in an entirely different world. The Columns
loomed above me, the pediment and tympanum were beautifully adorned. I felt as if I was a part
of something larger, seeing the events that had happened around this inexplicable building. It
was breathtaking, an experience that cannot be conveyed in words. My first experience of the
structure was awe inducing.
However, moments later the tour began. A sweet old lady walked up to us and began
telling us about the building. She welcomed us to the replica of the Parthenon. This term, replica,
brought the entire illusion I thought I had felt moments before crashing down. This wasn’t the
building where years of history had implanted themselves, each moment carving a part of its
story into the stone. It was simply a re-creation, but not of something that really exists, it was a
re-creation of something we wanted The Parthenon to be, but by adding our own takes on the
building, it stripped it of everything that made the structure so monumental. It spoke to
humanity, and to our culture here; about how in our attempt to make everything perfect, it
instead turns plastic, and all the charm of reality and truth is lost.
The original Parthenon, which Nashville so desperately tried to re-create claiming they
were the Athen’s of the South, shrugged off the rich history of the actual Parthenon. The true
Parthenon, built in Athens, Greece, was erected in honor of Athena; a temple and place of
worship for her. It served other purposes too; it was a manifestation of victory over the Persians
during the Persian wars. The crumbling remains lie in the Acropolis, a series of temples from the
same time period, all built in honor of different gods, placed on the top of a hill in the center of
the city. The Acropolis is part of the essence of the Greek people, the Parthenon especially. In
claiming it as our own we disregarded the Greek’s culture. The Parthenon’s history goes deeper
than that. This is the moment we try to stop and capture it in time, right after it had originally
been built. However, it was also a church, and a mosque. While serving as a Christian church the
emphasis of the building changed from the wondrous statue of Athena to the altar at the forefront
of the building. Later, it was used in a mosque. Then, years later, on the same date as our tour,
September 28th, parts of the building were left in crumbles after an attack on the city.
The Parthenon re-creation in Nashville disregards this continuum of history that is ever ongoing.
Nashville’s Parthenon was originally built to be part of a temporary installation during the 1987
Tennessee Centennial Exposition. Other instillations included the Great Pyramid representing
Memphis. However, after the exposition the community decided to rebuild the temporary
structure using poured concrete, without referencing the original beautiful stone structure
standing in Athens.
This brings me to question if the Parthenon in Nashville can truly claim to be a piece of
architecture. Earlier in the semester, through discussions with my classmates, I came to the
understanding that architecture is a response to the environment surrounding it. Instead,
Nashville tried to take a piece of someone else’s environment and call it their own. They built the
Parthenon in hopes that they could become the Athens of the south. This is in no means the
definition of good architecture. It doesn’t try to be someone else, bulldozing over what is there in
the process. It accepts and embraces what is truly happening and is created based off of that.
Even if the Parthenon here in Nashville claims to be a replica of that in Athens, it still does not
successfully achieve this. It is reasonable that the builders had to guess and infer about certain
parts of the building, but they did not build exactly to what was known. They used poured
concrete, skimped on the use of illusions for straight lines, and only chose one part of the frieze
for the entire building. It speaks to how we cannot re-create someone else’s culture here. This
would never have been done in the Greek Culture, everything they did was to pure perfection,
even with their limited resources.
Although the tour was at first hugely disappointing, and the re-creation here fell short of my
expectations, it led me to a greater understanding of the actual building. And not only of this, but
also of the Greek culture surrounding it. This experience led me to a greater appreciation of
history and the buildings standing amidst it in every part of the world.