Hellenic Centre

The Hellenic Centre is located in an early 20th century Portland stone and red brick building in the charming and sought-after area just off Marylebone High Street in central London.

The Hellenic Community Trust was established as a charitable body to take ownership of the building, and an appeal was then launched to raise further money needed for the renovations and refurbishment that were required to provide a number of meeting and exhibition rooms, including the Great Hall.

The building that now housed the Hellenic Centre was commissioned in 1910 from the architectural practice of Forsyth and Maule by Allan Broman (1861-1947), a pioneer of Swedish medical gymnastics and massage—a forerunner of modern physiotherapy.

This system of exercise was invented in Stockholm in the early nineteenth century by Per Henrik Ling as a way to improve the physical fitness of schoolchildren, the army and the general population, and to promote recovery after illness.

Two years later, after an elegant conversion preserving many of its fine original features (including some of the gymnastic equipment, transformed into modern sculptures by the artist George Kyriakou), the building was reopened as the Hellenic Centre.