April 8, 2003

New Acropolis Museum exhibition at the Onassis Cultural Center

Posted at 7:25 am in Elgin Marbles, New Acropolis Museum

The Onassis Cultural Center in New York is organising an exhibition & a lecture about the Parthenon Marbles & the New Acropolis Museum.

From:
Onassis Cultural Center

March 6, 2003 – April 9, 2003
THE NEW ACROPOLIS MUSEUM IN ATHENS: DESIGN & ORIGINAL EXHIBITS FROM THE ACROPOLIS COLLECTION

Beginning on March 6, 2003, the Onassis Cultural Center will present The New Acropolis Museum, a multi-media exhibition on the new museum designed by Bernard Tschumi. The Museum is being built to house all the archaeological findings from the Acropolis, and it is expected that the building structure and the gallery for the Parthenon marbles will be completed in time for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. The exhibition will include architectural drawings and renderings of the building, models, and examine the conservation technology that will be used in the Museum. Also included in the exhibition will be original finds from the Acropolis that will ultimately be housed in the Museum. The exhibition will remain on view until mid-April.

The New Acropolis Museum exhibition will give visitors an opportunity to sense the scale and proportions of the new building, and will include architectural models, designs, images, and a 3-D interactive walk-through of the building. In presenting Tschumi’s models and renderings, the exhibition shows how he created a building in harmony with the authentic Acropolis environment, which facilitates a direct relationship between the new institution’s exhibitions and the famous monuments from which they originate.

The objective of the New Acropolis Museum is to improve the manner in which the invaluable treasures from Greek antiquity are presented to millions of visitors each year. Sited only 800 feet away from the legendary Parthenon, the New Acropolis Museum incorporates the ruins of the 3rd, 5th, and 7th century A.D. city revealed by excavations on the site. The gently ascending entrance ramp is built above the remains of the ancient Athenian city that has been excavated, and the ramp mirrors the symbolic ascent to the Sacred Rock of the Acropolis. The archaeological findings from the Sanctuaries of Asklepios, Nymphe, Aphrodite and Eros will be displayed here. The first floor of the Museum will hold the finds of the Archaic Period, from 800-500 B.C., in a 21,100 square feet area punctuated by architectural columns.

The Museum’s 34,500 square-feet third floor is devoted to the Parthenon Gallery, a space that replicates the proportions and orientation of the Parthenon itself. From the third floor Parthenon galleries visitors can view the city of Athens to one side and the actual Parthenon monument to another. In addition to exhibition galleries, the Museum will house a restaurant on the mezzanine, with a large terrace spanning northward. The terrace will provide panoramic views of the Acropolis and the city of Athens.

A key feature of Tschumi’s design is the incorporation of natural light into the building, providing optimum lighting for viewing the fine details of the Parthenon sculptures. The highly advanced specifications of Tschumi’s structure will also ensure the proper air and light controls for these objects from antiquity. Tschumi’s firm is working in conjunction with Athens-based architect Michael Photiadis.

In addition to the exhibition, the Onassis Cultural Center will host a forum about the concept behind the Museum’s design, with a panel including architect Bernard Tschumi, Terence Riley, well-known scholar and Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art, and President of the Organization for the Construction of the New Acropolis Museum and accomplished archaeologist Dimitrios Pandermalis. The forum is scheduled for March 6.

Bernard Tschumi was chosen from a broad field of architects who participated in an international competition. First known as an architectural theorist, Tschumi has built extensively in Europe and in the Americas. He is currently designing the Museum for African Art in New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Paolo, Brazil. Completed and ongoing projects include the Marne La Vallee School of Architecture in Paris, the Le Fresnoy National Studio for Contemporary Arts in Tourcoing, France, and Columbia University’s Lerner Hall Student Center. He has most recently served as the Dean of Columbia’s graduate architecture school, where he transformed the program into one of the most respected in the world.

The international competition to find an architect was headed by the Organization for the Construction of the New Acropolis Museum, a privately regulated organization operating in the public interest and supervised by the Greek Ministry of Culture. The President of the OANMA, as it is known in Greek, is Dimitrios Pandermalis, also currently the Director of Archaeological Excavations at the University of Dion and Professor of Classical Archaeology at the University of Thessaloniki. In the past, Pandermalis has served as a Member of the Greek Parliament, and is a member of the Archaeological Society of Athens and the German Archaeological Institute of Berlin. He is also the President of the Executive Committee of the International Foundation of Alexander the Great and of the Tellogleion Foundation, which organizes exhibitions, symposia and seminars focused on Greek art.

From:
Onassis Cultural Center

04.08.03 THE PARTHENON DIVIDED
Tuesday, April 8, 2003 at 6:30 p.m.

The Parthenon Divided
On the occasion of the exhibition “The New Acropolis Museum: Design and Original Exhibits From the Acropolis Collection”

Dr. Jenifer Neils
Ruth Coulter Heede Professor of Art History, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio
Chair, Museums and Exhibitions Committee, Archaeological Institute of America
“The ‘Restoration’ of the Parthenon Marbles”

Dr. Anthony M. Snodgrass
Laurence Professor Emeritus of Classical Archaeology, University of Cambridge, UK
Chairman, British Committee for the Restitution of the Parthenon Marbles
“Long Division: How Did it Come About?”

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