Acropolis Museum

The New Acropolis Museum (Greek: Μουσείο Ακρόπολης ) is a museum in Athens. It secures only finds and objects from the Acropolis of Athens and has approximately 5 million visitors a year The current building at the foot of the Acropolis was designed by Bernard Tschumi and Michalis Fotiadis and officially opened on 20 June 2009.

• 2.1 From the Archaic to Late Antiquity
• 2.2 The Parthenon frieze
• 2.3 cup of the first marathon ( 2015 )

History of the Museum

First Museum of 1863

The beginning of the presentation were a few exhibits on the Akropolisfelsen in the open air, some of it under wooden roofs and temporary covers. The first excavation of the Persian rubble in 1863 showed that soon a museum building is likely to be necessary. A year later donated Demetrios Bernardakis, a resident in Russia Greek, the construction costs. Soon after the construction of the first museum began on the Acropolis, which was designed by Panagiotis Kalkos ( one of the architects of the National Archaeological Museum ). Over time, this also proved to be too small, especially because of the streams of visitors from abroad, so that half a century later a second Acropolis Museum was planned.

Second Museum from 1937

It was built in 1937 by Patroclus Karantinos in classic modernist style in a depression on the Akropolisfelsen. It consists of a concrete skeleton that is filled in with stone. The purpose of this unusual solution was to integrate the building from a distance as possible unimpressive in the rock sink. The building took the tray completely and could not therefore be extended or altered in any significant degree. For the first time the exhibits could be shown in chronological order.

This museum was to be demolished in accordance with the original plan for the purpose of archaeological excavations. Due to lack of space on the Acropolis and its architectural value but this has been rejected. It is to be converted to an office of administration, in which case a public café is to be established.

Plans to new

Greek Prime Minister Konstantinos Karamanlis expressed in 1974 the desire to build a new museum. In the 1980s, Minister of Culture Melina Mercouri took up the proposal again and secured the 1.8 hectare site of Makrigianni Barracks as the site on which also a former military hospital (designed by Wilhelm von Weiler ) is from 1839. She joined the construction also with the demand for the return of 1801 by Lord Elgin removed from the Acropolis treasures ( Elgin Marbles ), especially of the Parthenon frieze, which are now in the British Museum in London ( see below). In the 1980s and 90s, a total of four competitions were advertised ( by the ideas competition to design the building ) is not ready, the last was necessary because of inconsistencies in the tender of the third competition had been found, and the Italian competition winner Manfredi Nicoletti and Lucio Passarelli were to consider a discovered in the meantime archaeological excavation site in their design. Her design had come under criticism for its overly glamorous aesthetic.

The last competition was won by Bernard Tschumi.

The new building

An important argument for the selection of the design of Bernard Tschumi was the consideration and integration of almost all excavation field. His design quotes or imitates the Parthenon, but attacks its proportions and materials ( the third floor has exactly the dimensions and orientation in order to show the frieze in its entire length and in the original order can ). The building is extremely earthquake resistant, it is on sliding pendulum and is thus decoupled from the substrate, so that seismic waves can not act ..

The plot was planted with olive trees and typical Athens bitter orange trees (Citrus aurantium ). Since olive trees grow very slowly, adult specimens were planted.

In the period up to the start of construction output was the construction of a new metro line directly before the planned building set ( Acropolis station of Line 2 ) and the road Dionyssiou Areopagitou the pedestrian zone ( " Peripatetic " ) redesigned. 2002 was the start of construction, with before and after numerous complaints from local residents with disabilities to build.

During the construction of the ground floor for visitors was opened; here animations were shown for building and relocation. 2007, the building was completed. The temperature inside the building is for reasons of conservation throughout the year exactly 23 ° C. After the closure of the old museum of the " most expensive parade in the history of Athens " was held. On 20 June 2009, the new museum was opened with an official ceremony in the presence of many important guests. The admission price was up 31 December 2009 symbolic 1 euro.

Discussions about the new

Already at the beginning of construction in 2002, construction was started a court action wave of residents. One reason was probably the Athens very prestigious " Akropolisblick " whose loss greatly devalued numerous dwellings; cited as reasons were, inter alia, Construction noise, shading, the findings under the building.

The second phase of the complaints concerned the planned demolition of two buildings on the Dionyssiou Areopagitou No 17 and 19 There are two apartment buildings, one of which ( from around 1910) the composer Vangelis belonged. The other is an Art Deco building designed by architect Vassilis Kouremenos, a friend of Picasso, built in 1930. They stood since the late 1970s listed building. According to the proponents of the demolition considers the buildings obstructing the view from the museum to the Acropolis hill. The critics maintained that this applies only to the view from the cafe terrace to the lower slope. In addition, the preservation of listed buildings was one of the competition rules and was also made by the supreme Greek Administrative Court, the State Council, local residents after a lawsuit as a condition of planning permission. The compromise of removing the buildings and facades to rebuild on the same street elsewhere, was rejected by the owners as well as from most preservationists. In addition to the court's decision was also made ​​of the abolition of protected status by the Civil and Environmental Ministry, which was very independent from that of the Ministry of Culture and also six other buildings on the same street front was concerned. Also, the International Council on Monuments and Sites ICOMOS spoke out against the demolition. The State Council finally decided in July 2009 to revoke the ministerial decision regarding the demolition. In contrast, the State Council approved the demolition of two other classical buildings behind the museum ( decisions 2335/2009 and 2339/2009 ). However, in early February 2010 decided the new leadership of the Ministry of Culture to preserve these buildings.

The architecture critic Tassis Papaioannou, who praised the urban pulse of the museum, complained the other hand, the lack of structural links with the surrounding buildings and wrote in his essay collection architecture and city: " The new museum ignored demonstratively its built environment, it does not condone building next to him [. ..]. His aesthetic is that of a shopping center, a display case, with the only difference being that behind the glass facade no cars or dresses are shown, but the sculptures of the Acropolis! "

The waves smoothed out with the approach of the opening date: Several Greek newspapers reported with mostly positive reviews and interviews about the museum, sometimes even in special supplements that were dedicated to the museum.

Exhibits

From the Archaic period to Late Antiquity

The museum will continue the 300 statues and frieze parts as well as about 4,000 other small objects from the Archaic period, classical antiquity and late antiquity show that were previously exhibited in the old Acropolis Museum on the Acropolis or swapped out of lack of space in magazines, including the following works:

• Blonde Head of the Acropolis
• Kritios - boy
• Calf support
• Peploskore

The Parthenon frieze

The construction of the museum is closely linked to the demand for the return of the Parthenon frieze. 1801, when Athens was still part of the Ottoman Empire, the British ambassador in Constantinople, Opel, Lord Elgin, procured a permit to take lying around finds from the Acropolis. He then dismantled much of the Parthenon frieze ( about half of the original length or two thirds of the resulting frieze ), numerous metopes, almost all gable figures and a Caryatid of the Erechtheion and other works of art. You are exhibited since 1816 in the British Museum, which refers to the legality of the acquisition by purchase from Lord Elgin and refuses to return the sculptures. To give weight to the demand from Greece to return, they wanted to initially keep clear the corresponding gaps in Parthenonsaal, decided at the end but for darker plaster casts. The lack of caryatid, however, was not replaced.

Cup of the first marathon ( 2015 )

Until the completion of one's own cultural center Stavros Niarchos Foundation 2015 has the Michel Breal Cup borrowed, had received the Spiridon Louis as the winner of the first marathon to the Olympics in 1896.

Awards