en:User:Salonica84 / Public domain
Alexandreio Melathron Nick Galis Hall is an indoor sports arena that is located in Thessaloniki, Greece.
Owners
- Greek Ministry of Culture
- General Secretariat of Sports
Architects
- Petros Gianettos
- M. Guyon
- T. Jeanblock
About the building
The arena was designed by the architects P. Gianettos, M. Guyon and T. Jeanblock between 1960 and 1962. It was built in 1966. The structure shares two of the architects with the Palais des Sports de Gerland in Lyon and has many similarities.
The building was redeveloped and updated in 2004, in preparation for the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. The updates involved reconstruction of all the building’s external and internal areas. Apart from what is directly visible to everybody, other works included new electrical and mechanical updates, air-conditioning, and audiovisual facilities. New seats, CCTV, and new lighting were also installed.
These updates unfortunately resulted in a lower permanent seating capacity (5,138 compared to the previous 6,000) for Alexandreio Arena, which reopened its gates in late 2004. The arena was again updated in 2015.
History
The arena was named after Alexander the Great, the king (basileus) of ancient greek kingdom of Macedonia. It is also commonly referred to as the “Palais des Sports” (meaning “Sports Palace”, in French). Under its former names, the arena was the first large indoor basketball arena built in Greece, and remained the largest until the year 1985, when the Peace and Friendship Stadium in Athens, was completed and opened to the public.
Being part of the Thessaloniki International Fair, the arena also serves for many purposes other than sports. It has hosted many international basketball events, and was also the home arena for both “arch-rivals”, Aris B.C. and PAOK B.C. for many years; up until the year 2000, when PAOK B.C. moved into their own new stadium, the P.A.O.K. Sports Arena.
On May 8, 2013, at an event honoring the well-known retired former Aris player, Nikos Galis, the Greek deputy culture minister, Giannis Ioannidis, announced that the main hall of the arena was to be renamed to “Nikos Galis Hall”
Who is Nikos Galis?
Nikolaos Georgalis – commonly known as either Nikos Galis, or Nick Galis – is a retired Greek professional basketball player. Galis is widely regarded as Europe’s greatest scorer to ever play the game, and as one of the all-time greatest players in FIBA international basketball history.
