The Hellenic Centre

The Hellenic Centre is a vibrant cultural organisation founded as a charity in 1994. We are located in a beautiful early 20th century Portland stone and red brick building just off the bustling Marylebone High Street in central London. This was purchased with the help of generous donations and support from many individuals and organisations.

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. See list of donors, amongst them the A G Leventis Foundation, Fafalios Shipping SA, the Bank of Cyprus London Ltd, the Michael Marks Foundation, and the Governments of Greece and Cyprus.

Most visitors to the Hellenic Centre’s red brick Edwardian home on London’s Paddington Street walk through the front door without looking up to see the evidence to the building’s history inscribed on the façade. But if you raise your eyes to the worn stone cartouche above the grand front porch, you can just make out the words “Central Institute for Swedish Gymnastics” bracketed between a pair of carved curling leaves. Our building 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. The building also contained lecture halls and classrooms for training teachers of the Swedish system.