Few people have had such a long running involvement with the New Acropolis Museum project as Professor Dimitrios Pantermalis. Visitors to the construction site of the museum will have regularly seen him, sowing people around & explaining about his plans for the display of artefacts within the building. He has acted as a representative of the government during the course of the building of the museum – an agent making key day to day decisions, so that quick answers could be given rather than referring everything to committees before there could be a response. As any architect knows, a great client is a vital ingredient in creating a great building – anyone who has visited the New Acropolis Museum will agree about its greatness.

From:
Athens Plus

Dimitrios Pandermalis looks back on achievement so far and forward to further projects ahead
FRIDAY, JULY 3, 2009 – PROFILE
From classroom to construction hat: New Acropolis Museum a work in progress
BY CHRISTIAN FLOW

On the corner of his desk, new Acropolis Museum board president Dimitrios Pandermalis keeps an apt symbol of his labors – a replica head of an early Classical statue, wearing a white construction hat.

For the soft-spoken archaeologist, it’s easy to see the appeal of the juxtaposition. Now an emeritus professor, Pandermalis spent decades in the classroom at the University of Thessaloniki before coming to public life, first as a member of Parliament in the mid-90s and then as director of the Organization for the Construction of the New Acropolis Museum beginning in 2000. And according to several of his colleagues who spoke to Athens Plus this week, it is precisely his ability to blend the academic and the pragmatic, the theoretical and the project-based, the sculptural eye and the construction-hat mentality that has made him – and the museum whose board he now leads – a success.
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Many of the press in Greece have been producing special features in supplements in the run up to the opening of the New Acropolis Museum. Athens Plus has produced one in English, that gives an overview of many aspects of the museum from its inception & aims to it current realisation. I encourage people to view the original article in PDF form at the web address given below to see the numerous photos that accompany the text.

From:
Athens Plus

Friday, June 19, 2009
New Acropolis Museum opens its doors
Modern building housing thousands of antiquities is finally ready to welcome visitors

After a long wait, the New Acropolis Museum, the most significant landmark to grace the cultural landscape of Athens in years, will open its doors following its inauguration on Saturday.

Priceless artifacts, some of which have been hidden away for years, will be displayed in surroundings especially designed to showcase their splendor. Athens Plus examines the impact of the new museum on the city, the debate about its design, what visitors can expect to see and whether it strengthens Greece’s case for the return of the Parthenon Marbles.

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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 »