A video projection wall may become a solution to the issue of the two buildings that sit between the lower levels of the New Acropolis Museum & the Parthenon.

From:
Reuters

Video wall may save historic Athens buildings
Tue Jun 16, 2009 12:59pm EDT
By Renee Maltezou

ATHENS (Reuters Life!) – A huge video wall may save two historic buildings threatened with demolition for blocking the view of Greece’s new Acropolis Museum, architects say.

Greek architects came up with hundreds of ideas to save the two landmarks, which stand in front of the new museum, due to open this week and expected to give new impetus to Greece’s efforts to bring home the Parthenon marbles from Britain.
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Bernard Tschumi describes the New Acropolis Museum as an anti-Bilbao museum, in reference to Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum. This should not be seen as a criticism of Gehry’s work, but more a description of the way in which the two buildings operate. The Gugenheim in Bilbao was all about creating an object, building a new context that would draw people to a relatively obscure Spanish city. The building’s sculptural form is now far more famous than its contents that are of secondary importance for many. On the other hand, the New Acropolis Museum sits in the context of one of the most famous works of architecture in the world – so quite rightly does not try to compete with it. Tschumi’s design is all about the contents of the building – relating these artefacts back to their original context through careful design, in a way that despite its vast physical presence, the building itself fades into the background as a mere framework for the viewing of the pieces within.

From:
Building

A hard act to follow: the New Acropolis
12 June 2009
By Dan Stewart

This is the New Acropolis museum, and it’s located a two-minute stroll from the most famous building in the world. So how did the architect handle that brief?

Bernard Tschumi’s long-awaited New Acropolis Museum is to open this month in Athens. The €130m (£113m) building was first mooted as long ago as 1976, when the first of four competitions was held. In 2000, Bernard Tschumi, a deconstructivist French architect known principally for his Parc de la Villette in Paris, won the fourth, and final brief.
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The New Acropolis Museum has gained huge amounts of press coverage – in part because of its inextricable linkage with the issue of the Elgin Marbles. As one of the worlds leading architects is building next to one of the worlds most famous structures though, it is not surprising that the architectural press is also interested in the project.

From:
Architectural Record

Tschumi-Designed Acropolis Museum Opens At Last
June 2, 2009
By David Dillon

The New Acropolis Museum, Bernard Tschumi’s minimalist counterpoint to one of the world’s great archaeological sites, officially opens June 20, eight years after he won an international competition to design it, and three decades after the idea for a new Acropolis museum first surfaced.

“The design was chosen for its simple, clear, and beautiful solution that is in accord with the beauty and classical simplicity of the museum’s unique exhibits,” says professor Dimitrios Pandermalis, president of the private organization overseeing the project. The original Acropolis museum, completed in 1873, will reopen as a gallery.
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As Bernard Tschumi looks back on the New Acropolis Museum project that he began when he won the competition in 2001, he discuses why he thinks that his building is the best possible home for the Parthenon Marbles.

From:
Bloomberg News

Return Elgin Marbles, Says Acropolis Museum Creator: Interview
Interview by Maria Petrakis

May 27 (Bloomberg) — Bernard Tschumi can afford a smile as he looks around at his new creation, the New Acropolis Museum, after an eight-year campaign to get it designed and built.

The Swiss-born architect has been on a Greek odyssey to get the $177 million structure ready, visiting Athens frequently to balance demands of conservationists, planners and archaeologists.
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From the inception of its concept, the New Acropolis Museum was designed with the principal aim of providing the best possible home for the Parthenon Sculptures. As such it will present the most persuasive argument yet that it gives the best context for the display of the fragments currently held in the British Museum.

Because of the importance of the contextual argument, it is not possible to replicate the New Acropolis Museum somewhere else – even if the British wanted to, they could never create a space for the display of the Elgin Marbles that would equal the one in Athens.

From:
The Independent

Elgin Marbles question renewed as Athens museum opens
By Frank Partridge
Saturday, 23 May 2009

The long-overdue New Acropolis Museum is now scheduled to open in Athens on 20 June. However, the impact will be felt most acutely in Bloomsbury, central London, as one of Britain’s longest-running international disputes takes a potentially decisive turn.

Athens’ share of the marble sculptures that once adorned the Parthenon temple on Acropolis hill, the crowning achievement of classical Greece, now have a permanent home 300 metres below the original site. The glassy, angular new museum is daring and eye-catching in itself, but it’s the contents of the third and top floor – and the way they’re arranged – that will make the world sit up and take notice.
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The New Acropolis Museum is due to open next month, which will be a significant event, both within the world of museums, but also for the campaign for the reunification of the Parthenon sculptures.

From:
Live PR

THE NEW AKROPOLIS MUSEUM-SET TO OPEN ON JUNE 20 AMID HIGH EXPECTATIONS!
16.05.2009 11:08:18 The New Akropolis Museum, at the foot of The Akropolis at Athens, is all set to open for public display completely on June 20, 2009, according to the Culture Minister of Greece, Mr. Antonis Samaras.

(live-PR.com) – Athens, March 30, 2009 – The New Akropolis Museum, which was opened in stages during early 2008, is all set to enthrall the visitors and public. The construction work which started on Nov 2004 has been completed and, after many postponements, it is due to open on 20th June 2009. The overall budget for the Museum’s construction was 130 million euro, including the cost of expropriations. The new museum which replaces the existing Akropolis museum will exhibit approximately 4.000 artifacts and is definitely going to be the new landmark that will be added to the city of Athens.
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As the opening of the New Acropolis Museum draws closer, more details are starting to be revealed about how it will look inside.

From:
PSFK

Peep Insights: Athens’s New Acropolis Museum
April 20, 2009

Athens just announced that the long-anticipated New Acropolis Museum will finally open this summer on June 20th. The ambitious museum and conservation project, almost 30 years in the making, calls for a state-of-the-art facility in the middle of the city’s historic center.

Although we were disappointed to have to wait another few months, our recent sneak peek of the galleries left us more than impressed. Instead of throwing up columns and attempting to blend into the ancient cityscape, the museum is completely abstract and modern. The controversial design resembles a stack of mislaid books, with the top floor askew to parallel the foundations of the nearby Parthenon, the middle floors a trapezoidal display area, and the bottom layer outlining the on-site archeological dig.
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The New Acropolis Museum is designed specifically for the purpose of presenting an unparalleled collection of ancient artefacts – some of which unfortunately will not be there when it opens.

From:
Arch Innovations

The New Acropolis Museum, Designed by Bernard Tschumi Architects
Tuesday, 07 April 2009

The historic masterpieces of the New Acropolis Museum—from the archaeological remains of ancient Athens left visible beneath the building to the glorious Parthenon frieze installed at the top— will be displayed in total for the first time when the Museum celebrates its much-anticipated official opening on Saturday, June 20, 2009.

Designed by Bernard Tschumi Architects of New York/Paris with Michael Photiadis of Athens as local associate architect, the Museum has presented a number of temporary exhibitions in a lower-floor gallery over the past year. With the official opening, visitors will at last view the full suite of galleries, presented in a dramatic architectural experience designed explicitly for this collection.
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Reports have appeared in the Greek Press suggesting a range of architectural problems with the New Acropolis Museum. One suspects that the people spreading these stories may well be the same groups of local architects who also made false allegations in the past about how the construction of the museums was destroying artefacts on the site when in fact it was designed to deliberately avoid them. What they are trying to achieve with this story is unclear however.

From:
Athens Plus

ATHENSPLUS • FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2009
ARCHAEOLOGY BY JOHN LEONARD
Athens museums in transition

Puzzling problems in structure of capital’s star venue reported just months ahead of official opening

Three of the city’s top cultural institutions are in the news at the moment with the buzz in Greek media about further construction problems at the New Acropolis Museum and the exciting renovation and expansion projects currently under way at the Byzantine and Christian and National Archaeological museums. Read the rest of this entry »

Whilst the British Museum regularly likes to imply that the building of the New Acropolis Museum will have no effect on the validity of the campaign to reunify the Parthenon Marbles, most commentators who have seen the building have the opposite opinion.

From:
Stuff (New Zealand)

Ancients modernised at New Acropolis
By NIKKI MacDONALD – The Dominion Post | Wednesday, 25 February 2009

The British will have to come up with a new excuse to hang on to the Parthenon frieze sculptures known as the Elgin Marbles. With the polished spaces of Athens’ New Acropolis Museum about to open, there can be no suggestion Greece lacks an appropriate stage to show off the ancient marble reliefs.

Conceived 30 years ago, the museum was to have opened before the 2004 Olympic Games, but it is only now nearing completion. The 130 million euro ($325m) building at the foot of the Acropolis, the imposing rocky outcrop bearing the Parthenon temple, is finished. The reception space is open, but the upper galleries remain cordoned off, except to us.
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A couple more articles on the plans for the formal inauguration of the New Acropolis Museum.

From:
Kathimerini (English Edition)

Saturday February 14, 2009 – Archive
NEWS
Grand opening in June

Much-awaited launch of New Acropolis Museum finally to go ahead, minister says

The long-awaited opening of Athens’s New Acropolis Museum, a controversial glass-and-concrete construction that has been designed to accommodate the missing Parthenon Marbles, is to take place on June 20, the culture minister revealed yesterday.
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More information on the plans for the opening of the New Acropolis Museum.

Due to the global financial crisis, a decision has been taken to reduce the scale of the opening event. Notice of the cancellation of the original tender to organise the opening is available here (in Greek)

From:
Athens News Agency

02/13/2009
Karamanlis confers with Culture Minister

Prime minister Costas Karamanlis met Friday with culture minister Antonis Samaras, in their first meeting since the latter’s assumption of the ministry helm after the January 7, government reshuffle.

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Samaras said he had a “substantive and fruitful” discussion with the prime miniser.
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