Onassis Foundation has restored Cavafy House in Alexandria, in partnership with the Hellenic Foundation for Culture, turning it into a destination that attracts visitors from every corner of the world. Cavafy’s past in Alexandria now converses with the present and future of his work at the Cavafy Archive in Athens.

@Andreas Simopoulos

On May 11, 2024, the Cavafy House opened its doors to the public with the aim of becoming a siteto welcome from all over the world.

For the opening of the Cavafy House in Alexandria, the President of the Onassis Foundation, Mr. Anthony S. Papadimitriou, and the President of the Hellenic Foundation for Culture, Mr. Nikos A. Koukis, welcomed the President of the Hellenic Republic, Ms. Katerina Sakellaropoulou, who inaugurated the restored Cavafy House, in the presence of the Minister of Culture, Ms Lina Mendoni, the Consul General of Alexandria, Mr. Ioannis Pyrgakis, the Greek Ambassador toCairo, Mr. Nikolaοs Papageorgiou, the scientific committee of the Cavafy Archive, the Board of Directors of the Onassis Foundation, a delegation of members of the Board of Directors of the Hellenic Foundation for Culture, the Director of Culture of the Onassis Foundation, Ms. Afroditi Panagiotakou, the Director of Education of the Onassis Foundation, Ms. Effie Tsiotsiou, and the representative of the Cavafy Archive, Ms. Marianna Christofi.

© Thodoris Manolopoulos

C. P. Cavafy moved to this apartment to what was then 10 Rue Lepsius (now 4 Rue C. P. Cavafy, formerly Rue Sharm El Shiekh) in 1907.The building was probably erected during the first decade of the 20th century, between 1905 and 1910. It stands as an example of the eclectic architectural style that prevailed in Alexandria during the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. For his first year in the apartment, Cavafy lived with his older brother Paul. The following year, Paul retired and moved permanently to France, to the town of Hyères, and from then on, the poet lived here alone. After his death, the building functioned as a boarding house named Amir, among other uses.

@Andreas Simopoulos

The street where the Cavafy House is located was called Lepsius during Cavafy’s era but was later renamed to C. P. Cavafy to honor the Greek poet. The building was surrounded by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, the Greek Hospital, and the city’s brothels, which Cavafy christened the “Temple of the Soul,” the “Temple of the Body,” and the “Temple of the Flesh,” respectively.

@Andreas Simopoulos

On November 16, 1992, on the initiative of the historian and writer Kostis Moskoff, cultural attaché at the Greek Embassy in Cairo, the Cavafy Museum was inaugurated in this space. From 1994 to 2020, the Cavafy Museum also hosted the Stratis Tsirkas Room, which was dedicated to the acclaimed Egyptian Greek novelist. The young Tsirkas met Cavafy and visited him in this apartment during the summer of 1930. Many years later, he wrote two landmark works on the poet, Cavafy and his Era (1958) and The Political Cavafy (1971).

@Andreas Simopoulos

On May 11, 2024, the Cavafy House was reopened to the public, with rooms filled with significant objects that illuminate the life of the world-renowned poet.

ACADEMIC ADVISORS FOR THE CAVAFY HOUSE EXHIBITION

Hala Halim,Associate Professor in the Departments of Comparative Literature and Middle Eastern Studies, New York University, USA

Peter Jeffreys,Associate Professor of English,Suffolk University, Boston, USA

Louisa Karapidaki, Museologist, Hellenic Folklore Research Center, Academy of Athens, Greece

Alexander Kazamias,Associate Professor in Politics,Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Coventry University, UK

Gonda Van Steen, Koraes Chair of Modern Greekand Byzantine History, Languageand Literature, King’s College London, UK

Mohamed Adel Dessouki, Urban History Advisor,University of Alexandria, Egypt

CAVAFY ARCHIVE ACADEMIC COMMITTEE

Stathis Gourgouris, Professor of Comparative Literature and Societyat Columbia University, New York, USA

Maria Boletsi, Endowed Professor of Modern Greek Studies at the University of Amsterdam (Marilena Laskaridis Chair)and Associate Professor in Comparative Literatureat Leiden University, The Netherlands

Martha Vassiliadi, Assistant Professor of Philology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece

Bart Soethaert, Principal Investigator at the Cluster of Excellence “Temporal Communities: Doing Literature in a Global Perspective” (EXC 2020) and post-doctoral researcherat Freie Universität Berlin, Germany

Amalia Pappa, Deputy Director General of the General State Archives, Greece

Peter Jeffreys, Associate Professor of English at Suffolk University, Boston, USA

Christina Dounia, Professor Emerita of Modern Greek Literature at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

Takis Kayalis, Professor of Modern Greek Literature at the Hellenic Open University, Greece

Vicente Fernández González, Associate Professor of Translation and Interpreting (Modern Greek) at the University of Malaga, Spain

Cavafy House

(4, C. Cavafy Str.)

2nd Floor

Tuesday-Sunday, 10:00-17:00

Free admission