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 Stephens

After 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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For many years, one of the excuses for the British Museum’s retention of the Parthenon Sculptures was that there was no suitable place in Greece to put them. This has now been solved by the completed Acropolis Museum which continues to receive overwhelmingly positive reviews.

From:
National Post

Saturday, October 3, 2009
Ready For The Return
The impressive new Acropolis Museum makes the case that Greece is all set for the Elgin Marbles
Ian McKellar, National Post

Let’s say you consider yourself something of a budding ruinologist. Perhaps you’ve visited some ancient Roman sites on a trip to Provence, maybe you’ve seen the pyramids or perchance you’ve even made it to Chichen Itza in the Mayan Riviera.

For such a cultured person as yourself, Greece presents a most appealing, if troubling, opportunity. The nation is the cradle of Western civilization, and Athens is chockablock with museums and historical sites — but always there are the whispers of bad traffic, of poor air quality, of stifling heat during the summer months.
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New Acropolis Museum architect Bernard Tschumi talks about the aims of the project and how it was designed to hold the Elgin Marbles.

Listen to the audiovisual presentation at Pidgeon Digital.

Few who have visited the New Acropolis Museum in Athens can deny the powerful argument that it represents for the reunification of the Parthenon Sculptures. The British Museum’s response however is to continue ignoring the issue & pretending it will go away, claiming that the opening of the new museum does not change anything.

From:
Sydney Morning Herald

A new life for ancient history
August 30, 2009

The New Acropolis Museum in Athens brings together Greece’s greatest treasures, writes David Whitley.

If ever something was on a hiding to nothing, it’s the New Acropolis Museum in Athens. It cost €130 million ($222 million) to build, is designed to hold many of Greece’s most important national treasures and is already being promoted as a tourism flagship.
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The New Acropolis Museum is an entirely modern architectural solution, but it respects the ancient buildings that it relates to, while never trying to compete against them.

From:
San Francisco Chronicle

New Acropolis Museum looks forward, honors past
Kenneth Baker, Chronicle Art Critic
Sunday, August 9, 2009

Designing a museum figures nowadays as a rite of passage in the careers of many celebrity architects. New York’s Bernard Tschumi faced an unusually stern test in this vein after winning a competition in 2001 to build the New Acropolis Museum.

For starters, he and Athens architect Michael Photiadis had to contend with house ruins – dating from the fourth to seventh centuries A.D. – unearthed on the museum site, about 1,000 feet southeast of the Acropolis and its crowning fifth century B.C. relic, the Parthenon.
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Whilst there have been many articles praising the design of the New Acropolis Museum, it is hardly surprising that some people have other views about the design of the building. The building was however the result of a number of competitions, so although some may dislike the design it is clear that many believed it was the best solution to the complex project brief. In many cases we might want a building to be somehow different, but there are always compromises to be made – trade offs between the building & its surroundings, openness & security etc.

From:
Archinect

Archinect Op-Ed: The Acropolis Museum; An Unhappy Fit
Jul 31, 2009
by Jan Lepicovsky

Last June, after three decades of competitions and debate, the Acropolis Museum in Athens opened to the public. It was designed by internationally re-known architect Bernard Tschumi, and it houses nearly 4000 ancient Greek artifacts, including the great stones of the parthenonʼs frieze. I first visited the Acropolis 15 years ago as an undergraduate student of architecture. Last month I had the opportunity to visit the site again, now with the eyes of an experienced architect. Hearing about the controversy surrounding the new museum, I was eager to see how one of the great theorists and idols from my student yeas responded to such a challenging, high-profile commission. My first glimpses of the building brought that familiar rush of excitement and anticipation, the kind you get at a concert just before the performer takes the stage. The simple geometric volumes, one rotated above the other, were familiar from pictures and, seeing it live, I could appreciate its powerful yet restrained presence. I walked the long way around to the front in order to take in the whole exterior. By the time I had made it around the block to the entrance, my initial excitement had faded and a different impression began to form.
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Bernard Tschumi, the architect who designed the New Acropolis Museum will be a keynote speaker at the annual Latsis University Prizes Ceremony at the University of Geneva.

He is giving this talk at 18:00 on Monday 5th October.

Britain has for many years maintained that Greece has nowhere to exhibit the Elgin Marbles & that they are better displayed in the British Museum. The New Acropolis Museum represents a challenge to these claims that can not easily be brushed aside any longer.

From:
Wallpaper

Thursday 16 July 2009
The Acropolis Museum, Athens
Chris Sullivan

It’s impossible to over-emphasize just how important the newly built Acropolis Museum is to the Greek people. Suffice to say that on approaching the brand new £110 million construction my companion for the day, Tina Daskalantonaki, owner of Athen’s King George Hotel, was in tears.

Opening five years behind schedule, the Acropolis Museum is situated on the sacred rock East of the Parthenon and houses the greatest sculptural treasures of the ancient world including works from the temple of Athena Polias on the Acropolis and parts of the Parthenon by Phidias.
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Rather than trying to compete with or emulate the Parthenon, the New Acropolis Museum instead uses its elegant minimalism to provide the perfect backdrop for the artefacts within.

From:
Toronto Star

Modernity enhances antiquity
Nearby Parthenon inspires reverent tribute to the wonders of Greece’s Golden Age
Jul 11, 2009 04:30 AM
Christopher Hume – Architecture critic

ATHENS – Architectural egotism notwithstanding, who wouldn’t be intimidated by the thought of designing a companion to the Parthenon?

Not Swiss-born, New York-based architect Bernard Tschumi. His New Acropolis Museum, which opened in Athens just weeks ago, sits at the foot of the celebrated site, just 300 metres from the seminal structure.
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The New Acropolis Museum is one of the most high profile cultural projects in Europe in the last decade. The British Museum still claims that its existence does not change anything though in the argument for the reunification of the Elgin Marbles.

From:
London Daily News

09 July, 2009 18:30 (GMT +01:00)
Why It’s Time We Lost ‘Our’ Marbles
By Gemma Brosnan

It has been described as one of the most high profile cultural projects undertaken in Europe this decade, costing over €120m after 33 years of planning.

Designed by Swiss-born/New York based architect, Bernard Tschumi and his Greek associate, Michael Photiadis, The New Acropolis museum opened in Athens last month to much fanfare, presenting a spectacular modern building boasting 226,000 square feet of glass, 150,000 square feet of display space spanning five floors and 4,000 artifacts.
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For many Greeks, the New Acropolis Museum is more than just a building – it has become a symbol of their pride in their country & their aspirations for their country.

From:
Daily Telegraph

Acropolis Museum: Athens unveils its bid for the Marbles
Greece’s New Acropolis Museum is a formidable rival to the British Museum and has renewed debate about the Elgin Marbles.
By Teresa Levonian Cole
Published: 5:00PM BST 30 Jun 2009

‘The opening of the New Acropolis Museum was one of the most emotional experiences of my life” says Tina Daskalantonakis, a Greek hotelier. “It is more than a museum – it is a symbol of national pride and hope for the future.”

The museum in question crouches 300 metres below the Acropolis. An angular behemoth of glass, steel, concrete and marble housing some 4,000 artefacts, it is the culmination of an idea first mooted by Konstantinos Karamanlis’s Conservative government in 1976 and, since the early 1980s, passionately advocated by the Socialist minister of culture Melina Mercouri: the creation of a home in which the Parthenon Marbles can be reunited and displayed to the world.
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The New Acropolis Museum is not just a museum housing finds from the Athenian Acropolis. Beneath the raised structure of the building, is another exhibit – the archaeological remains discovered on the site during construction & now displayed in-situ.

From:
Wall Street Journal

EUROPE NEWS – JUNE 30, 2009
At the Foot of the Acropolis
By CHRISTINE PIROVOLAKIS
Athens

What could present more of a challenge than designing a major new building to stand at the foot of the Acropolis, revered as one of the great architectural achievements of Western civilization? That new structure is the €130 million ($182.9 million) Acropolis Museum, which, after more than 30 years in the making, finally opened to the public on June 20. Braving the blazing sun and heat, crowds by the thousands thronged its gates eager to be among the first to explore the museum’s vast collection of sculptures and artifacts from ancient Greece.

Efforts to create the museum began as far back as the 1970s. The last attempt, launched in 2003 under the Swiss-born architect Bernard Tschumi’s leadership, was dogged by years of delays caused by archaeologists and local residents. At first there was public resistance to the design of the museum — whose three-level glass and steel structure was deemed far too modern to complement the classical style of the ancient temple. More delays were caused by the difficulties of transporting delicate exhibits from the old museum atop the Acropolis to the new one below. Now visitors enter the new building by climbing a ramp that faintly echoes the slope up to the Acropolis.
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