After visiting Athens, Mary Beard has concluded that the spaces within the New Acropolis Museum are very impressive & live up to all expectations. She is still not convinced however about how well the outside sits with the rest of the city. Personally, I think that in a few years, people will get used to its look & learn to appreciate it as part of the city.

From:
The Times blogs

June 30, 2008
The New Acropolis Museum is good . . .

. . . from the inside at least. I’m not so sure about the outside.

I’ve been in Athens for a few days and the main purpose was to see round the New Acropolis Museum, nearly finished and with a few sculptures already installed. My expectations were a bit muted, and I’d read rather too much about the whole thing being a mausoleum for the missing Elgin Marbles.

Actually it was, in all sorts of ways, a very nice surprise. The top floor where the Parthenon Marbles are to be displayed worked especially well – looking directly at the temple on the Acropolis itself and, as the jargon goes, having “a conversation” with it (though one of my Greek friends did mutter darkly about it being a rather one-sided conversation).
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