Thessaloniki's 15th-Century Alcazar Mosque Reopens as Art Space

After almost 20 years of conservation work, a 15th-century mosque in the Greek city of Thessaloniki has reopened as a public art space.

The Hamza Bey Mosque, widely known as Alcazar, welcomed visitors again on 11 October 2026 with free admission, according to Greek City Times. Its new role is as an exhibition space and cultural centre. No services. Just shows, events and open doors.

The October reopening closed a conservation story that began in 2006.

The building started life in 1467. It was commissioned by the daughter of Ottoman admiral Hamza Bey, The Art Newspaper reported. It stopped working as a mosque after the 1923 population exchange, the compulsory movement of Greek and Turkish populations between Greece and Turkey, and became property of the National Bank of Greece.

Its next chapters were practical. It briefly housed a military barracks. It was declared a protected monument in 1926. Then for several decades it operated as a cinema called Alcazar, and the nickname stayed with the building long after the projector stopped.

The name Alcazar comes from those cinema years and remains in common use.

Saving it took patience. The mosque came under the protection of the Greek Ministry of Culture in 2006. Structural work and stabilisation began in 2007. Work unfolded in stages over almost 20 years. The final phase ran from 2024 to 2026 with support from the European Recovery Fund, finishing interior and exterior work to prepare the site for public use.

The venue will now be run by MOMus, the Metropolitan Organisation of Museums of Visual Arts of Thessaloniki. Some management decisions will be taken in collaboration with the Ephorate of Antiquities of Thessaloniki City, the local heritage authority. The plan is for heritage-themed events and activities, the kind of programme that uses old places to tell local stories.

The first show fits that brief. It is Thessaloniki: The Footprint of Transition (1960-1980) Through the photographs of Pete Marifoglou, a look at two decades of street life and city change through archive images.

For visitors, this means a rare chance to step inside. Many knew Alcazar only as a closed landmark or a former cinema. Now it is free to enter and built for looking. Expect history on the walls and in the walls themselves.