The New York Times
“I am stubborn. I am still afraid of entropy. An organization that does not evolve is condemned to die.” ANGELOS DELIVORRIAS
By SUZANNE DALEY
HIS office, in the basement, feels like a storage room with stacks of
bubble-wrapped picture frames leaning against the walls. There are piles
of books, and catalogs and scholarly papers, too. On this day, a small,
graceful statue — a headless female figure — sits on a table near his
cluttered desk.
Angelos Delivorrias cannot help but study her with a critical eye. She
could be Roman or just a 19th-century replica. “Figuring that out is a
little project of mine,” he says.
But it is hardly his only challenge these days.
Mr. Delivorrias has been the director of the Benaki Museum
here for 40 years. When he took it over, the display space filled just
half the Benaki family’s neo-Classical mansion. Objects were crammed in
oak and glass cabinets — about 37,000 Islamic and Byzantine items,
mostly grouped by function.
Since then, he has overseen a steady modernizing and expansion, building
the Benaki — and now its six annexes — into one of Greece’s foremost
cultural institutions. Under his tutelage, the Benaki has acquired an
additional 60,000 objects, books and documents through purchases and
donations. Buildings have been renovated, exhibits reorganized.
