Athens has the original, but the Parthenon in front of you is Nashville's full-scale concrete replica, the only such reproduction in the world. The original was built for the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition as a symbol of Nashville's aspirations to cultural prestige, the physical embodiment of the city's self-bestowed nickname: Athens of the South. Nashville claimed that title in the early nineteenth century on the strength of its proliferation of educational institutions, and the Parthenon was the grandest possible statement of that identity.
The concrete building you see today replaced the original wood-and-plaster version in the 1920s and was completed in 1931. Inside, the structure houses an art museum and, most dramatically, a forty-two-foot gilded statue of Athena Parthenos — the largest indoor sculpture in the Western hemisphere. It was installed in 1990, based on ancient descriptions and surviving fragments of the original.
The experience of walking into the Parthenon's main chamber and looking up at that gold and ivory goddess in a Tennessee city park is genuinely disorienting and genuinely wonderful. Nashville built a Parthenon because it believed it deserved one. The belief was so strong it built the thing twice.