“The Museum of Typography is an example for all of Greece”

Visit of EKPA professor A. Karakatsoulis and the special advisor to E.KE.BI. S. Kambouropoulou.

Impressed by the rare collections of the “Yiannis & Elenis Garedakis” Museum of Typography, stated during their recent visit to Chania, Ms. Anna Karakatsouli, professor of the University of Athens, in the Department of Theater Studies where she teaches History of the book, director of the History Laboratory of the Book and Mr. Sokratis Kambouropoulos, who was a special advisor to the National Book Center (E.KE.BI.) for 18 years.

Ms Karakatsoulis, which deals with issues of intellectual history and the circulation of ideas in the European space during the 19th-20th centuries, declared that she was excited by the collections of the Typography Museum while leaving open the possibility of a new visit with her students, in the next period. She has worked at UNESCO (Paris) and the Alexandros S. Onassis Foundation.
“I knew about the existence of the Museum but I never had the opportunity to visit it and I was very happy to see that it is complete. It excited me! I hope to come back soon with my students so that they can see in front of them what we are studying in the course and have a better picture of the history of printing and the book”, he said and added: “It is impressive that the Museum presents the entire flow of development of Typography and also it is extremely interesting to see all these machines in working condition, not just as museum exhibits. And that’s why the work being done is very important”.
Regarding the rare editions of the Typography Museum, Ms. Karakatsouli pointed out that “it would be worth publishing a catalog with all these nice, rare editions”.

On his part, Mr. Socrates Kambouropoulos, who was a special adviser to the National Book Center for 18 years, from 1996 to 2014 when it closed, as responsible for publishers and printers, emphasized that “this telling of the history of Typography, even in Athens, is difficult for us, that is, we are trying to reconstruct it… Let’s say the establishment of a Typography Museum was one of the first plans of the National Book Center, it was in its statutory purposes in 1996. It never happened. And looking door-to-door for the old printers, we could not find machines, some had thrown them away or their premises had been lost, etc. So the Typography Museum in Chania is a model for all of Greece. This visit of the students of the University of Athens to the Museum of Typography is well planned because here museologically a history is formed, the history of the printed language. Congratulations to Mr. Garedakis. It’s amazing what he did!”