The first Museum of Typography in Greece is located in Chania, Crete, in the heart of the Mediterranean sea. It is a private initiative by Yannis Garedakis, founder of the newspaper “Haniotika nea”, with the support of his wife Eleni. He has been collecting, for more than thirty years, machines and other exhibits that mark the evolution of European typography….
The Museum is a member of the Association of European Printing Museums (AEPM), of the International Association of Printing Museums (IAPM) and of the European Route of Industrial Heritage (ERIH), a Cultural Route of the Council of Europe.
In 2016 the Museum of Typography had the honor to be nominated for the distinguished prize “European Museum of the Year Award 2016“, (EMYA 2016) awarded by the European museum Forum (EMF), under the auspices of the Council of Europe.
The Museum of Typography is a modern and unique museum that presents to all guests the history of printing and typesetting. Through the interactive tour, guests come to understand the course of typography from middle ages up to the present days. During the tour all visitors are encouraged to print at printing presses of the 19th century….
History
Printers and Linotype operators, working together in dark basements and sheds, were putting up a fight for every form of publication. With love and respect towards the lifeless objects of their work… Those typographic objects, printing machines, printers and operators should not be forgotten. The idea for the creation of a Museum of Typography started to spin around my head about three decades ago.
- YIANNIS GAREDAKIS -
Wing A
Machinery and exhibits that date from the Middle Ages and the start of european Printing are on display in the first wing of the museum, alongside automatic printing presses of the 20th century. a true copy of the Gutenberg printing press gives the mark of that era.
Foot-operated Victoria printing presses, bought from Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland, as well as one donated by a Greek typographer, mark the course of typography in time, while numerous, smaller, hand-operated Boston-type printing presses adorn the museum areas.
Typesetting benches where the typesetter would compose the text, letter by letter, using cast iron type, dating from Gutenberg’s time in the 15th century to the beginning of the 20th century, coexist with the machine of mechanical typesetting which dominated the largest part of the 20th century, linotype.
Wing B
This is the “industrial” wing of the museum, since until 2008 it housed the printing presses of the newspaper “Haniotika Nea”, today located at a nearby building.
Almost every technique related to printing is on display here: Book binding, copper engraving, wood egraving, silk screen printing, monotype typesetting machine, offset, telex, engraving machine and one offset tower from the old web press of the newspaper.
“History of Writing” exhibition
A unique exhibition consisting of 40 panels with artistic and informational material on the history of Writing. From cave drawings to computers, the artist-typographer Antonis Papantonopoulos narrates cleverly through his work the evolution of man’s effort to communicate through written words.
