The Parthenon in Centennial Park, in Nashville, Tennessee, is a full-scale replica of the original Parthenon in Athens, Greece. It was designed by Confederate veteran William Crawford Smith and built in 1897 as part of the Tennessee Centennial Exposition. Today the Parthenon, which functions as an art museum, stands as the centerpiece of Centennial Park, a large public park just west of downtown Nashville. Alan LeQuire's 1990 re-creation of the Athena Parthenos statue in the naos (the east room of the main hall) is the focus of the Parthenon just as it was in ancient Greece. Since the building is complete and its decorations were polychromed (painted in colors) as close to the presumed original as possible, this replica of the original Parthenon in Athens serves as a monument to what is considered the pinnacle of classical architecture. The plaster replicas of the Parthenon Marbles found in the Treasury Room (the west room of the main hall) are direct casts of the original sculptures, which adorned the pediments of the Athenian Parthenon, dating back to 438 BC. The surviving originals are housed in the British Museum in London and at the Acropolis Museum in Athens. The east pediment represented the birth of Athena. The west pediment depicts the contest between Athena and Poseidon during their competition for the honor of becoming Athen’s patron. Nashville's nickname, the "Athens of the South", influenced the choice of the building as the centerpiece of the 1897 Centennial Exposition. A number of buildings at the exposition were based on ancient originals. However, the Parthenon was the only one that was an exact reproduction and the only one that was preserved by the city.—Wikipedia
Lizzie the Dragon in Centennial Park outside The Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee. Lizzie is a mosaic seat in the shape of a Dragon created by artist Sherri Warner Hunter. Her artwork includes large scale public commissions, personal pieces for exhibition, and community based projects. Hunter’s work is included in numerous private collections and can be viewed publicly at many locations, including Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA; the Executive Residence of Tennessee, Nashville; McLaren Health Care Village, Clarkston, MI; and as part of the 1st International Mosaic Intervention project in Puente Alto, Chile.
