October 27, 2009
The New Acropolis Museum presents the case for the reunification of the Elgin Marbles
The Architectural Record argues that the New Acropolis Museum represents the most powerful case yet for the reunification of all the surviving Parthenon Sculptures in Athens.
From:
Architectural Record
New Acropolis Museum, Athens, Greece
Bernard Tschumi Architects presents a case for bringing the Elgin Marbles back to Athens in its design for the New Acropolis Museum.
By Suzanne StephensAfter all the controversy, lawsuits, and delays in building the New Acropolis Museum in Athens, it will no doubt seem churlish to point out that the $180 million museum, designed by Bernard Tschumi Architects, is not the firm’s most spectacular work. It lacks the lyrical grace of the stainless-steel-and-concrete Zenith concert hall in Rouen or the finesse of the shimmering, perforated-steel Vacheron Constantin headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, to name two. The dour mien of the New Acropolis Museum, with its sharp angles, black-fritted glass (except for a small section of the south wall), and less-than-perfect concrete work evokes High Modernist commercial American buildings of the 1970s.
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