The NTUA-AMDC, as part of the Restart project, organised a Seminar on the topic: “Restoration and rehabilitation as a tourist venue of old mining galleries- engineering, design, funding and operation”. The seminar was held as part of the Creative Europe – RESTART project (WP3 – Training 7), under the title: “Restoration and Rehabilitation of Old Mining Galleries as Tourist Venues – Engineering, Design, Funding, and Operation.”
The seminar’s purpose was to:
- Demonstrate how an old mining gallery can be transformed into a safe and accessible tourist attraction
- Explore the challenges that a mining and metallurgical engineer must overcome to revive such spaces
- Present relevant international examples and how modern technologies can contribute to these efforts
Invitation
The Lavrion Technological and Cultural Park (LTCP), in collaboration with the School of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), is organizing an educational visit to the Historic Mining Gallery in Lavrion, within the framework of the European project RESTART (Creative Europe 2022).
The excursion includes a visit and a guided tour to the mining gallery, located in the LTCP, by Kostas Papathanasiou, a former chief engineer who worked there while it was still in operation. Presentations will also be delivered by Professor D. Kaliampakos, from the School of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering (NTUA) and Vice-President of AMDC-NTUA (LTCP), Professor A. Benardos, from the same School, Ms. Olga Seni, Architect Engineer and staff member of the LTCP, and Mr Thanasis Kotsalis, Architecture student at the University of Patras.
The excursion will take place on Wednesday, May 7th, 2025. The total duration, including transportation to Lavrion, will be five hours. Departure is scheduled for 9:00 a.m., and return from the LTCP at 2:00 p.m. Transportation will be provided by bus, free of charge.
For practical reasons, the number of participants is limited to 40. The participants applied through a registration link.
General information
On the 7th of May, the Lavrion Technological Cultural Park (LTCP), in collaboration with the School of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA), organized a seminar and educational visit to the Historical Mining Gallery within the Park.
The estimated number of participants exceeded the 25 people. A total of 32 university students (Female: 15, Male: 17) participated in the event.
In the first part of the seminar, presentations were delivered by:
- Prof. D. Kaliampakos, School of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering, NTUA & Vice President of AMDC-NTUA (LTCP)
- Prof. A. Benardos, School of Mining and Metallurgical Engineering, NTUA
- Mrs. Olga Seni, Architect Engineer MSc, executive at LTCP
- Mr. Thanasis Kotsalis, undergraduate student, School of Architecture, University of Patras
The speakers highlighted the unique characteristics of specific restored mining galleries worldwide. They discussed both the risks and opportunities associated with such venues, as well as the role of physical and technological equipment to add for the smooth operation, the aesthetic value and the adequacy of additional information material in creating an educative and immersive visitor experience. Special focus was placed on the LTCP’s own Historical Mining Gallery, analyzed from an engineering perspective, with insights provided on appropriate restoration practices.
In the second part of the seminar, the professors guided the students in (the safe part of) the historical mining gallery. Mr. Kostas Papathanassiou, a former mining engineer and Chief Engineer at the CFML factory, shared his experience and spoke about the gallery’s impressive 3,000-year operational history. Students observed ancient tool marks and soot traces from mining lamps, witnessing first-hand the technological evolution of mining practices and the profound shifts brought about by the industrial revolutions of the 19th and 20th centuries.
At the end of the visit, the students completed a questionnaire evaluating the seminar content, the effectiveness of the educational visit, their impressions of the site, the new knowledge they acquired, and any general feedback or suggestions.
Summarizing: 32 questionnaires were completed in total (Female: 15, Male: 17). On the first part of the seminar the participants gave in general a very positive ranking concerning the content and the intelligibility of presented material. They found very satisfactory the hall’s experience.
The traineers also found that:
- It would have a positive impact for their future work
- There were ideas that could implemented in their work
- Opportunity to visit an old mining gallery has been valuable
- It helped to understand the necessity, the opportunities and the difficulties of restoring old galleries
- They learnt about the precautions should be taken under consideration for the public safety
