Acropolis Museum
ATHENS, GREECE
The city of Athens is home to not one but two Acropolis museums, both in the process of transition. The “old” museum, located east of the Parthenon, was founded in the late 1800s but is now closed and slated to be remade into a café and refurbished gallery space. While temporary exhibitions have opened to the public, the “new” Acropolis Museum’s grand opening ceremony has been postponed. Why? Though the Acropolis Museum’s collection includes many important ancient and sacred Greek art forms, the most controversial Elgin marbles have yet to be returned from their current home in London’s British Museum. Named after the 7th Earl of Elgin, the 19th-century British ambassador who either liberated or stole them from the Greeks (depending on your point of view), the 5th-century marbles represent more than half of the surviving sculpture from the Parthenon. The legitimate ownership of these priceless artifacts has been in doubt for nearly 200 years.
Designed by Swiss-French architect Bernard Tschumi and located at the foot of the “old” Acropolis, the new museum will have room to display the 4,000 objects and artifacts gathered from the Acropolis, including a large gallery devoted to displaying the reunited Parthenon sculptures in a way reminiscent of ancient Greek times. Transferring the objects to the new building was not an easy task; three construction cranes hauled more than 300 ancient sculptures and architectural elements from the Parthenon, some weighing more than two tons. —SBR
Highlights at the Acropolis Museum include ancient marbles from the Parthenon (pictured above).