The History of Bookbinding | 2022-23

Have you ever heard the phrase “don’t judge a book by its cover”? At the Onassis Library, we’ll be taking a closer look not just at the covers but also at the spines of books, which bind their pages together, and diving deep into the thrilling history of bookbinding.

Case boards and endpapers, thread sewing and fasteners, adhesives and clamps: these words may seem strange to you now, but they’re all tools in an art that you’ll soon make all your own thanks to this workshop that draws its artistic inspiration from the major Greek sculptor Yanoulis Halepas.

All you have to do is collate the pages and decide whether they should be sewn together or clamped for gluing, trimmed or rounded with a hammer.

With the help of Foinikas Publications, you’ll learn how to bind books and make a unique notebook of your own to give as a gift or keep as a memento.