The Municipality of Limassol considers the creation of a Museum of Sports History of GSO and Municipal Cultural Infrastructure as the highest obligation of the local Authority towards the history of the city and the people of culture and sports.
This was stated in the afternoon by the Mayor Nikos Nikolaidis, presenting the plans of the two projects, which will be erected in the area of GSO and in the section "Epameinondas" respectively.
As Mr. Nikolaidis said, "a Limassol, which is considered and is the sports fan of Cypriot sports, could not have a museum that records the glorious history of its sports club, GSO", adding that "neither, nor Limassol, of culture and cultural creation, could not have a house of culture, a house for the people of Letters and Arts ".
Referring to the first project, of the Museum of Sports History GSO, the Mayor said that The purpose of its creation is the understanding of the value of classical sports and football by the general public, through the collection, preservation, recording and documentation of the history of sports, as well as the promotion of sports to people of all ages.
According to Nikos Nikolaidis, one of the goals of the museum is to create an innovative digital library, which will feed the study of classical sports and football, while an important element of its permanent exhibition will be multimedia and modern technologies.
"The Museum will be a museum of living history, where the physical presence of sports people in the museum itself will function as a living testimony of those who will report through their own experiences, memories and objects." he added.
In its outdoor area, additional sports facilities are expected to be designed based on the themes of the museum.
The Municipal Council has included in the budgets of 2022 and 2023 the amount of € 700,000 for the construction of the museum and the goal, as the Mayor of Limassol said, is the start of the construction works next autumn and its operation in 2024.
The competition for the preparation of construction plans and specifications was won by the office of the architect Margarita Danou (who also designed the initial renovation of the GSO) and which presented the project in more detail.
Regarding the creation of municipal and cultural infrastructure in the municipal block "Epamineondas", Nikos Nikolaidis said that the Municipality aims to create a House of Culture, to solve a triple problem, "the lack of housing for several cultural institutions and groups in the city. the lack of space to exhibit archives and collections of Limassol people who wish to donate them to the Municipality and the difficulty of finding workshops and studios for artists and creators of Limassol, especially young artists ".
Recalling that the project was preceded by a series of contacts and consultations with institutions, groups and people of the city's culture, he said that the Technical Services of the Municipality proceeded to a preliminary architectural proposal, based on the guidelines.
The proposal concerns, he continued, creation of a ground floor organized public parking space of at least 150 spaces and design of the building that will include, large basement space for storage of archival material of the Municipality, conference space for music and theater performances, exhibitions and other events, space for services cultural associations, groups and organized groups, spaces for permanent or long-term exhibition of private collections and archives, spaces for studios and workshops and common office spaces, meeting rooms, etc.
The cost of the project is expected to reach around three million euros and the relevant funds have been included in the 2022 and 23 budgets.
The project proposal was presented by the architect of the Technical Services of the Municipality, Evelyn Evdorou.