Showing results 1 - 12 of 66 for the tag: Architecture.
Annmarie Fitzmaurice has written an essay on the New Acropolis Museum. She looks at how the building combines the past with the present, including the controversy that surrounded the construction of the building on such a sensitive site.
You can view the whole essay online here.
The New Acropolis Museum represents a high point in Greece’s recent history – finally, after years of arguments, political wranglings & archaeological digs, a new home had been constructed to house the Parthenon Marbles. for once, a building was able to tell a story of a modern country that was still deeply in touch with its rich cultural heritage – it was not using moernity to turn its back on the old, but instead using it as a framework to re-evaluate it & re-discover it.
From:
Modern Diplomacy
The Acropolis Museum: a paradigm of Nations Branding in the Making
Peggy Kapellou, Maria Kyriacopoulou Hellenic Foreign PolicyIn the gloomy after crisis general ambience in Greece, how many of us still take the time to review major achievements of the country’s reputation to the International Community? And still, it was only three years ago, on June 20, 2009, the whole world witnessed the opening ceremony of what has been characterized by the New York Times as «one of the highest-profile cultural projects undertaken in Europe in the last decade»: the new Acropolis museum.
The inauguration day and the week of various festivities and parallel events, was the culmination of a long run project, carefully planned and implemented as part of an integrated approach.
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The Parthenon frieze today, whether you look at it in the New Acropolis Museum or the British Museum, is on full display, easily observed by any visitors who stand in front of it. When it was on the Parthenon though, it was a much harder entity to observe – hidden high up, inside the outer columns & thus blocked by the outer beam containing the metopes.
Because it is hard to get access close to the Parthenon because of the restoration works, it is not so easy to see today, just how obscured the sculptures actually were in ancient times. I first looked at this as part of my university thesis, twelve years ago, when I noticed this issue from looking at sectional drawings through the building & then later on a 3D CAD model that I constructed.
It was not a completely unplanned problem though, as the depth of the relief of the carving of the frieze is carefully graded from top to bottom, to enable them to be ore clearly seen from below.
At the time that I was researching the issue, I came up with possible theories on why they might have created such a large amount of sculpture that was almost hidden in this way – but was unable to prove any of them & reached no firm conclusions on the subject. I’m very interested to see what other ideas come up as a result of this new research project into this aspect of the Parthenon’s sculptures.
You can find out more about Emory University’s Parthenon Project here. As with the Caryatid Hairstyles Project, that I mentioned a few days ago, its great to see that so much research is being made into the art & architecture of ancient Greece – and that even with sites as intensively studied as the Parthenon, it is still possible to rediscover many more new things from its ruins.
From:
The Tenessean
Parthenon puzzle is doozy
Art students try to solve mystery behind frieze
3:06 AM, Nov 11, 2012It’s one of the mysteries of the ancient world, an architectural enigma that has puzzled art historians for centuries.
And one that a group of students were trying to solve on Saturday in Centennial Park.
The original Parthenon in Athens, Greece, was an architectural triumph devoted to the goddess Athena. And in spite of being held up as a masterpiece of the Classical Era, art historians for centuries have wondered why its designers hoisted an immaculately sculpted frieze to a spot partially obscured by the Parthenon’s iconic columns.
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After the 2012 Olympics, the housing in the Olympic village, currently used for all of the Athletes attending the event, will be refurbished & altered, to convert it into private housing. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear to me, architect Niall McLaughlin has decided to clad some of these building in panels that replicate the Parthenon Marbles, cast out of concrete. Tom Flynn has already written about it on his blog here.
From:
Notes From The Underground
East is East : The Athletes Village and the Elgin Marbles
Once the dust from the Olympics and Paralympics has settled, the Athletes Village will be transformed into East Village. Hosting over17,000 athletes and team officials during the Olympic Games, the Village will be converted into 2,818 residential units including 1,379 affordable homes. The athletes currently sleep in the homes of future owners, fulfilling the site’s own mantra of ‘Beds for athletes, homes for Londoners’. And what homes they are, with beautifully differentiated envelopes and the Lea Valley Park on their doorstep. Meanwhile, with athletes from all 205 competing countries in the village, a worldwide community is sure to identify these individual blocks as home for the next month.
One piece of this differentiation caught my eye in particular. Down at the Building Centre on Store Street, there was a slick exhibition of what the Village will be like after the games. New London Architecture, in association with Delancey, put on the exhibition ‘East Village – a lasting legacy for London’ from the 13th to the 31st March to showcase the architectural and design excellence of the village set within the broader context of the transformation of East London (1). Here models of the entire proposal sat alongside descriptions of the area, drawings from the architects and materials for the buildings themselves. Right in the middle of them all was this:
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Following Christopher Hitchens death, Stephen Fry talks about why he now thinks that the time is now right for the Parthenon Marbles in the British Museum to return to Athens.
From:
StephenFry.com
A Modest Proposal
By Stephen Fry
December 19th, 2011Greece is the Word
I have a modest proposal that might simultaneously celebrate the life of Christopher Hitchens, strengthen Britain’s low stock in Europe and allow us to help a dear friend in terrible trouble.
Perhaps the most beautiful and famous monument in the world is the Doric masterpiece atop the citadel, or Acropolis, of Athens. It is called the Parthenon, the Virgin Temple dedicated to Pallas Athene, the goddess of wisdom who gave the Greek capital its name.
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The New Acropolis Museum has been shortlisted for the European Union’s prize for architecture.
From:
Greek Reporter
Acropolis Museum on Short List for European Award
Posted on 23 March 2011 by Marianna KourtiThe finalists have been shortlisted from 343 works in thirty-three European countries. The award ceremony will take place on June 20th at the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion in Barcelona, Spain.
The six finalists are Neues Museum (Berlin, Germany) – David Chipperfield Architects / David Chipperfield; Bronks Youth Theatre (Brussels, Belgium) – MDMA – Martine De Maeseneer Architecten / Martine De Maeseneer, Dirk Van den Brande; MAXXI: Museum of XXI Century Arts (Rome, Italy) – Zaha Hadid Architects / Zaha Hadid, Patrick Schumacher, Gianluca Racana; Concert House Danish Radio (Copenhagen, Denmark) – Ateliers Jean Nouvel / Jean Nouvel; Acropolis Museum (Athens, Greece) – Bernard Tschumi Architects / Bernard Tschumi; Rehabilitation Centre Groot Klimmendaal (Arnhem, The Netherlands) -Architectenbureau Koen van Velsen / Koen van Velsen.The prize highlights excellence in contemporary buildings and contribution to the development of new ideas and technologies in urban evolution .
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A new book, from a series on the architecture of museums, looks at the design of the New Acropolis Museum which opened last year in Athens.
There are many different reasons put forward for the restitution of the Elgin Marbles to Athens, most of which are strong enough to stand up as sufficient justification on their own, even if the other arguments were removed. In this case, it is the argument for presenting the sculptures in the context of the Parthenon itself that holds the most weight with Nick Thornsby.
From:
Nick Thornsby’s blog
Thoughts on the Parthenon Marbles
Posted on September 17, 2010I’m in London today, because this morning I took part in a ‘bloggers’ interview’ with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg. I’ll be blogging about that soon.
However no visit to London is complete without a visit to one of my favourite places – the British Museum. I particularly wanted to go today because a couple of months ago I was in Athens and visited the New Acropolis Museum, where most of the Parthenon marbles are displayed – many of the remaining marbles, of course, are displayed here in the British Museum.
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Niki Dollis who has worked with the Organisation for the Construction of the New Acropolis Museum for the entire duration of the project (& will be known to anyone who visited the site before the building opened), has written a book for children about the actual process of construction of the new museum & the reasons that a new museum was needed.
The book came out earlier this year – it has currently sold out, but I’ve been told that more copies are printed & it will soon be available again in the shop at the New Acropolis Museum.
From:
Greek Reporter
Greek Australian Writes Storybook: “Building the New Acropolis Museum”
Posted on 18 September 2010 by Apostolos PapapostolouThe book “Building the New Acropolis Museum” is by Niki Dollis and illustrated and designed by Elena Zournatzi. The children’s book tells the story of the realization of a dream. As Niki Dollis mentions in her introduction, it is “a book about hope, expectation… but also hard work for the construction and preparation of the New Acropolis Museum”. The storybook is published by Livanis Publishing Organization. Dollis is the Director of Mr. Pantermalis’ office, who is the head of the New Acropolis Museum.
Through the 60 pages of her book Dollis familiarizes young and all readers, with the notion of a museum. It is a very interesting subject to begin with especially when it serves as an open window to the world of ancient Greece, such as the New Acropolis Museum.
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As a building that has achieved an iconic level of fame, Greece’s Parthenon has been copied (both well & badly) in many different countries around the world. Most famous is the copy in Nashville, but there are others, such as the unfinished replica in Edinburgh & one in Germany known as the Valhalla, built by King Ludwig I.
From:
Irish Times
Friday, August 20, 2010
Heaven can wait but Valhalla here to stayFINDING GERMANY: King Ludwig I’s temple thrusts one into the cold heart of Germany’s 19th-century hero cult, writes DEREK SCALLY
THE TEMPLE perched on the hill over the river Danube is a dead ringer for the Parthenon in Greece – only gleaming white and fully intact.
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Victoria University School of Architecture in Wellington, New Zealand, has produced ten scale models of various aspects of the Parthenon. These are now being shipped to Athens for display in the New Acropolis Museum.
From:
Stuff (New Zealand)
Parthenon heads from Wellington to Athens
By MIKE WATSON – The Dominion PostOne of the world’s most recognisable buildings has been cut down to size by a Wellington architectural lecturer in models to be exhibited in Athens.
Ten models depicting sculptures and detailed sections of the Parthenon and Acropolis have been made by Victoria University School of Architecture and Design lecturer Jeni Mihova, and graduates Jordan Wisniewski and Matt Fraser.
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This review seems to like some bits of the New Acropolis Museum, but not others. I guess I shouldn’t have expected unequivocal praise from a site called Grumpy Traveller. In some ways, its liking of the interior far more than the exterior echoes the comments Mary Beard made last year.
From:
Grumpy Traveller
Athens, Greece: Review of the new Acropolis Museum
David Whitley has mixed feeling on Bernard Tschumi’s new showcase for the treasures of the Parthenon.New Acropolis Museum in Athens
If ever something was on a hiding to nothing, it’s the new Acropolis Museum in Athens. It cost EUR130 to build, is designed to hold many of Greece’s most important national treasures and is already being promoted as a tourism flagship.
Naturally, the critics had a field day before it was even opened. Some pointed to the cost, some to the position at the foot of the Acropolis rather than on it, others to the fact that a Swiss architect – Bernard Tschumi – was employed rather than a Greek.
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