The Acropolis Museum: The Home of the Gods
Do you want to visit the Acropolis Museum and immerse yourself in history?
If you’re visiting Athens and want to spend time at the Acropolis, you must pay a visit to the Acropolis Museum.
The Acropolis Museum (Greek: o, Mouseio Akropolis) is an archaeological museum dedicated to the finds of the Acropolis of Athens‘ archaeological site.
The museum was constructed to hold all of the artifacts discovered on the cliff and adjacent slopes, dating from the Greek Bronze Age through Roman and Byzantine Greece. It also sits on the remains of a Roman and early Byzantine section of Athens.
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The museum was formed in 2003, and the Museum Organization was founded in 2008.
It was first available to the public on June 20, 2009.
Over 14,000 square meters, over 4,000 artifacts are on display.
Professor Emeritus of Archaeology Dimitrios Pandermalis of Aristotle University of Thessaloniki chairs the Organization for the Construction of the New Museum.
The Acropolis Museum Takes Your Hands on History
The first museum was built on the Acropolis in 1874, and it was expanded somewhat in the 1950s.
However, subsequent excavations on the Acropolis found a large number of additional items, much beyond its initial capacity.
Another reason for the new museum’s construction was that in the past, when Greece requested the return of the Parthenon Marbles from the United Kingdom, which had acquired the items in a contentious manner, some British officials suggested that Greece did not have a suitable location where they could be displayed.
All subsequent ideas for the building of a new museum have included the creation of a gallery for the exhibition of the Parthenon Marbles.
Competitions for the new Acropolis Museum
The pink Weiler Building is seen top right, the two buildings planned for removal are seen top left, and the hill of Lycabettus is just visible behind them.
During the building of the museum, earthworks were carried out at an ancient site at Makrygianni.
The first architectural competition for a new museum was organized in 1976, and it was only open to Greek citizens.
Both the 1976 competition and the one that followed it in 1979 failed to generate any results, owing to the unsuitability of the plots of land chosen for the proposed structures.
In 1989, a third worldwide competition for the design of the new Acropolis Museum was launched. There was a choice of three probable locations.
Manfredi Nicoletti and Lucio Passarelli, two Italian architects, won this competition. Following delays during the 1990s, work on the museum’s construction based on this third design got to the point of foundation excavations, but they were halted due to allegedly sensitive archaeological remains on the site, resulting in the competition’s annulment in 1999.
In hindsight, the new museum’s choice was simple: the big lot of the disused “Camp Makrygianni” gendarmerie barracks, just across from the Theater of Dionysus.
The barracks were constructed on public property, and a limited number of expropriations of nearby private homes were required to make room for them.
The neoclassical “Weiler Structure,” the main building of the former barracks, has been refurbished and now houses the Museum of the Center for Acropolis Studies.
The fourth competition had made no provision for the old site’s preservation.
Only when local and international (ICOMOS) activists uncovered this lapse and it became the final competition were these addressed to some extent.
The revised designs called for the structure to be lifted above ground and supported by pillars.
The competition was only accessible to architectural firms that were invited, and it was won by Bernard Tschumi of New York, in conjunction with Greek architect Michael Photiadis.
Excavation uncovered two layers of tiny, private wayside dwellings and workshops, one from the early Byzantine period and the other from the classical period.
Suitable places for the foundation pillars were determined when the arrangement and stratigraphy of the finds were established.
These float on roller bearings that can endure a Richter scale magnitude 10 earthquake and cross the soil to the underlying bedrock.
The project to relocate the ancient objects the 280-meter (310-yard) distance from the Acropolis rock to the new museum began in October 2007 and lasted four months, requiring the deployment of three tower cranes to safely transport the sculptures over the distance.
Officials from Greece expressed their optimism that the new museum would aid in the effort to reclaim the Parthenon Marbles.
Location of the Acropolis Museum, Athens Greece
Acropolis Museum and Parthenon (right).
There’s a museum on the Acropolis’s southeastern slope, on the old path to the “holy rock.”
The museum is the biggest modern structure built thus near to the Parthenon,[citation required] while several other buildings built in the previous 150 years are closer to the Acropolis.
The building’s entrance is on Dionysiou Areopagitou Street, next to the Akropoli metro station on the Athens Metro’s red line.
The Acropolis Museum –The Building
Bernard Tschumi’s design was chosen as the winning proposal in the fourth competition.
The design of Tschumi is based on three ideas: light, movement, and a tectonic and programmatic aspect.
These traits work together to “transform the site’s limits into an architectural opportunity, producing a basic and exact museum” with the mathematical and conceptual clarity of ancient Greek structures.
The museum’s holdings are shown on three floors, with ancillary rooms such as the museum store, café, and offices located on the fourth center level. The finds from the Acropolis’ slopes are on display on the museum’s first floor.
The sloping floor of the long and rectangular hall evokes the ascent to the cliff. The visitor is next directed to the enormous trapezoidal hall, which houses the ancient artifacts.
Artifacts and sculptures from other Acropolis structures such as the Erechtheum, the Temple of Athena Nike, and the Propylaea, as well as finds from Roman and early Christian Athens, are on the same level.
Visitors will be guided to the top level, which houses the Parthenon marbles, to observe the latter during their descent in order to maintain the chronological sequence: they will first be sent to the top level, which houses the Parthenon marbles.
To obtain the same cardinal orientation as the ancient temple on the Acropolis, the top level of the Museum stands askew on the lower floors.
The Parthenon hall’s column spacing is identical to that of the ancient temple, and the use of glass on all four outside walls enables natural light to illuminate the Parthenon marbles in the same way as it does on the original temple.
The Parthenon hall’s 48 columns create a colonnade for the exhibition of the Parthenon marbles and indicate the shape of the old temple.
The pediment marbles are displayed at eye level in front of the end columns for ease of viewing; the metopes are displayed on the columns, two per column, but not as high as in the ancient temple; and the frieze are displayed behind the metopes, forming a continuous band around the walls of a rectangular space set inside the columns, as in the ancient temple but not as high as in the ancient temple, again for ease of viewing.
The ancient temple on the Acropolis may be seen from the north side of the Parthenon hall.
Because the museum is situated on top of a large archaeological site, the floor, both outside and within, is commonly made of glass, allowing visitors to view the excavations below. An amphitheatre, a virtual theatre, and a hall for temporary exhibits are also available at the museum.
The light
Because the museum mostly shows sculptures, which need different lighting conditions than other kinds of museums, the museum depends significantly on natural light.
The movement
The visitor’s path is a three-dimensional circle that takes them from the archaeological dig to the Parthenon hall and back, providing an architectural and spatial experience.
The architecture
The museum’s construction is centered on a concrete core that matches the Parthenon frieze’s precise measurements. The support rooms are located within the core, while the museum’s display spaces are constructed around it and in the atrium that is formed.
The Acropolis Museum Controversy
Archaeological dig underneath the museum’s main entrance.
The proposals for the new museum sparked a debate over whether it was permissible to develop it on an ancient site in the Makrygianni district. Another question was whether a massive contemporary structure would blend in with the surrounding environment.
Another debate occurred in 2007 about the planned destruction of two historic structures.
Numbers 17 and 19 Dionysiou Areopagitou Street, facing the Acropolis, are in front of the museum (see picture, left).
Bernard Tschumi has been exhibiting photographs of the area in front of the museum that have been manipulated to remove the two buildings and four-story-tall trees. Despite the fact that one is Neo-Classical[7]and the other is an example of Art Deco architecture, the Greek government had the two buildings delisted from the historical register.
The Acropolis Museum – Awards
- It received the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) Award of Excellence and Sustainability on May 13, 2010. [8]
- The Museum was named the Best Worldwide Tourism Project for 2010 by the British Guild of Travel Writers (BGTW) on November 8, 2010.
- The American Institute of Architects (AIA) Institute Honor Award for Architecture was given to the Museum in 2011.
- It was one of six nominees for the Mies van der Rohe Award, given by the European Union for Contemporary Architecture in 2011.
- The International Institute for Conservation (IIC) in Vienna presented the Acropolis Museum with the Keck Award 2012 on Friday, September 14, 2012, for its pioneering program of conservation and restoration of the Caryatids.
- In 2017, the Acropolis Museum was voted 8th in TripAdvisor’s Travellers Choice Awards for the World’s 25 Best Museums.
The Acropolis Museum – Other information
A view of the Acropolis Museum at night.
The museum’s entry cost was €1 for the first year and €5 after that.
The excavation under the ground level is still going on. The ground level glass flooring allows visitors to see the site and the process. Once the excavation is finished, the site will be open to the public.
The Acropolis Museum was chosen as the subject of a commemorative Euro coin: the €10 Greek Acropolis Museum commemorative coin, struck in 2008 to commemorate the museum’s relocation. The reverse features a panoramic image of the Acropolis, with the new museum at its foot.
The museum is open until late on International Museum Day, with free admission and a variety of events and activities for visitors.
The museum is open until late at night on full moon evenings in August and invites visitors for free.
Concerts are also held in the museum’s courtyard on the same night.
523,540 individuals visited the museum in the first two months after it opened (an average of 9,200 a day). Sixty percent were tourists from other countries. The museum’s website had 409,000 visits from unique visitors from 180 countries within the same two-month period.
The Museum of Applied Arts/Contemporary Art in Vienna has given a quadriga with the goddess Nike from the collection of Theophil Hansen, the famous builder of neoclassical structures in Greece and central Europe in the 19th century, to the Acropolis Museum (October 2014 – February 2015).
The Nicholson Museum at the University of Sydney donated a Lego Acropolis model to the Acropolis Museum from December 2014 to December 2015. Ryan McNaught spent around 300 hours building the model, which has over 120,000 Lego pieces.
The Acropolis Museum has a replica of Michel Bréal’s Silver Cup, which was presented to Marathon Winner Spyros Louis during the inaugural Modern Olympic Games (1896). The Cup stayed in the Acropolis Museum until the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center was completed, where it is presently on display.
Three golden Scythian displays were awarded to the Acropolis Museum by the Hermitage Museum (March 2016 – October 2016). Two vases and a piece of jewelry were among the three items. The Greeks of Crimea, who had formed a strong connection with the Scythians, created these metalwork wonders.
Samsung established a digital classroom at the Acropolis Museum in June 2016. The digital classroom is aimed at elementary and secondary school pupils. This digital classroom was the first in Greece and the fifth in Europe to be set up in a museum.
During his visit to Athens (November 15–16, 2016), US President Barack Obama paid a visit to the Acropolis museum.
Documenta 14, the fourteenth edition of the art exhibition documenta, will be held at the Acropolis Museum from March 24 to October 31, 2017.
Exhibits & Floor Plan of the Acropolis Museum
Bernard Tschumi and Michael Photiadis created the Acropolis museum, which has been ranked 11th on TripAdvisor’s list of the world’s top museums. The museum depicts the architectural and mathematical ideals of the ancient age in Athens in a non-classical architectural style, embracing all its antiques and exhibits without taking the light from their beauty.
On the ground, first, and third floors of the Acropolis museum are the permanent and temporary displays, while the second floor has a store, multimedia center, and open areas where visitors may relax and take in the view of the holy rock..
The museum’s circular path takes visitors on a trip through the Acropolis’s history, from the time of the holy hill’s earliest inhabitants through the 5th century AD. There are votive gifts to Gods and worship artifacts as well as ordinary art that pass before your eyes as you go around the Acropolis hill and the Parthenon and the Erectheion.
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The lower level
- An ancient Athenian town was unearthed during the excavations, and the museum was thoughtfully constructed on top of that discovery. Prior to entering the main museum display and during the tour, guests may see these ruins via a glass floor.There is a first-floor display at the Acropolis Museum with relics from the Acropolis’ slopes, including ordinary items like cooking pots and symposia containers, as well as votive gifts used to worship the gods.
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The second floor
- As soon as you get to the first level, you breach the time constraint and go back in time to when city-states were established and democracy was beginning to take hold. In the Archaic gallery, visitors may see a large variety of Acropolis artifacts dating back to the 7th century BC through the Persian Wars (480/79 BC).
The third-floor
The Parthenon Gallery, located on the third level of the Acropolis Museum, is the museum’s crowning achievement. Built between 448 and 438 BC, Parthenon symbolizes the ancient Greek mentality, with its columns depicting themes such as mathematics, architecture and beauty. The Parthenon Gallery displays the items unearthed within the shrine, the metopes, and the pediment of the sanctuary in an evocative and naturally illuminated atmosphere that strives to give visitors a sense of stepping into the Temple of Athena Parthenon.’
For example, a 160-meter-long frieze depicting Panathinaea – the grand celebration honoring goddess Athena, as seen in the British Museum – is waiting for its 80-meter-long counterpart to return.
There are exhibitions from other Acropolis structures on the first level as you make your way down. Athena Nike Temple’s sculptures may be seen in the Propylaea’s unusual coffered ceiling. The Erechtheion’s south porch is supported by the popular Caryatids, elaborately clothed clothing maidens.
Acropolis Museum exhibits from 5th-century BC to 5th-century AD await on the north side of the first floor, where you may finish your exploration.
In the museum’s last gallery, you’ll see relics from the Artemis Brauronia sanctuary, Greek and Roman votive items, and more, all dating from the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods. The Acropolis Museum will leave you speechless.
Opening Hours of the Acropolis Museum
Aside from Mondays and Fridays (which are closed), the museum is open daily from 8.00 am to 8.00 pm throughout the summer months. In the winter, the museum’s hours are a little different; it opens at 9.00 am and closes at 5:00 pm, except on Fridays when it stays open until 10.00 pm and on weekends when it stays open until 8.00 pm. The museum shuts half an hour before the latest entry time.
Visit the Acropolis Museum website often to stay up to current on opening hours and entry rates.
The museum’s stores, restaurant, and café are all open to the public for free.
Don’t forget about the baggage check system and cloakroom, where you must deposit any bags or parcels that you bring into the museum’s main area. Because of this, it is a good idea to carry light while visiting a museum.
Apart from guiding and service dogs, no pets are allowed in the museum, and cell phones may only be used in the lobby, café, and restaurant. All of the museum’s exhibits are open to photography, except for the Gallery of the Slopes of the Acropolis and the Archaic Gallery, which are closed to the public. Be aware that the use of flashes or other portable photographic equipment is not permitted.
Restaurant and cafeteria at the Acropolis Museum
Along with its historical and cultural offers at the Acropolis Museum, guests may enjoy a unique gastronomic experience in its restaurant and cafes.
Located on the second floor of the Acropolis Museum, the museum’s restaurant and cafe has a 700-square-foot balcony with a 360-degree view of the Acropolis and other old Athens hills. Various hot foods based on traditional recipes are available, each of which is updated according to the season.
Fresh shrimp from Alexandroupoli with ouzo, cherry tomatoes, barley and Kozani saffron, beef scallops with fresh oregano, lime, and delicately sautéed seasonal vegetables, and handmade Bolognese pasta served with cheese from Amfilochia are some of our favorites on the daily menu. The menu also includes a meal of the day that is based on local cuisines from all throughout the nation.
To make things even better, the Acropolis Museum Restaurant and Cafe offers unique kid’s menus that include Greek prosciutto and cream cheese on a bagel loaded with gruyere cheese or a typical Thessaloniki bagel filled with Cretan gruyere cheese.
An good view of the Parthenon may be had from the terrace of the Acropolis Museum Restaurant & Cafe. Greek food, which concentrates on Designation of Origin Products, draws locals and tourists alike, who visit after seeing the Museum’s most popular exhibitions.
Enjoy the Best View to the Acropolis Museum
If you haven’t studied archaeology, you won’t be able to fully appreciate this spectacular sight if you visit the museum on your own or without enough historical understanding.
In our view, a guided tour of the Acropolis Museum is the finest way to explore all of its exhibits. Tours are a great way to learn more about ancient Greece and its people through the eyes of an experienced, certified guide.
Acropolis and Acropolis Museum may be seen in all its grandeur on the Private Mythology Tour of the Acropolis and the Acropolis Museum or the Best of Athens in One Day: Acropolis and City Tour with Transfer. Guided tours are a necessity if you want to see the city of Athens like a native, save time, and get about like an expert!
A trip to Athens isn’t complete without a visit to the Acropolis Museum, which houses a beautiful collection of ancient Greek artifacts. To make this a once-in-a-lifetime event, you now have all the knowledge you need.
Museum of the New Acropolis
New Acropolis “light, movement, and a tectonic and programmatic element with the mathematical and conceptual clarity of ancient Greek buildings”
The New Acropolis Museum is located on Dionysiou Areopagitou Street, under the south slope of the Acropolis in Athens. It’s included on our city tour, so you can see it for yourself.
Even though several other structures constructed in the previous 150 years are placed closer to Athens’ Acropolis, this museum is the biggest contemporary structure built so near to the Ancient Site. It is just 280 meters (310 yd) away and 400 meters (440 yd) walk from the Parthenon.
Bernard Tschumi designed the New Acropolis Museum.
In Tschumi’s design, light, movement, and a tectonic and programmatic aspect are all intertwined.
Combined, they create a “simple and exact museum” with the “mathematical and conceptual clarity” of ancient Greek architecture.
Until 2009, the New Acropolis Museum was only open to the public.
The museum store, café, and offices are located on the fourth floor, which is accessible by a spiral staircase.
Picturesque Acropolis Slope Gallery in Greece.
Athens’ Acropolis Slopes Gallery is located on the first floor of the museum.
The sloping floor of the long and rectangular hall evokes the ascent to the cliff.
Gallery of the Ancients
The Archaic artifacts are displayed in a big trapezoidal hall for the convenience of the visitor.
To put it simply, archaic dates from about 7th century BC to around 4th century AD, which is when Persian Wars took place (480/79 BC).
Development of the City-State and shift from Aristocracy to Tyranny and finally Democracy mark this time period.
Great accomplishments in the economy, art and intellectual life also define this period.
This includes Propylaea (the Temple of Athena Nike), as well as the Erechtheum (the Temple).
All of these other Acropolis structures, including The Erechtheum, The Temples of Athena Nike and Propylaea, as well as relics from the Roman and Early Christian periods in Athens City, may be found on the same level.
Finally, the Caryatids – or Korai of the Erechtheumat – may be seen in close proximity on a balcony overlooking the Gallery of the Slopes of the Acropolis of Athens for the first time ever, as well as the Coffered Ceiling of The Propylaea.
The metopes, pediments, and frieze of the Parthenon Gallery.
The Parthenon hall has the same orientation as the temple on the Acropolis of Athens, and the use of glass enables natural light to pass through the building.
Third-floor visitors to the Parthenon Gallery may see a film presentation on the structure and its sculptural adornment.
Records of the building costs of the Parthenon and Athena Parthenos’ statue are also found in this location.
Tourists are given an insight into 5th-century BC politics as a consequence of the museum’s exhibits. For those who want to see all of the frieze’s features, the frieze of The Parthenon is installed atop a rectangular cement core that is precisely the same proportions as the cella of The Parthenon.
Cast replicas at museums overseas, such as the British Museum and the Louvre, have been used to put together a narrative for The Panathenaic Procession’s tale.
As far back as 5th century BC.
At the north end of the first-floor gallery, the show comes to an end. Exhibitions from the 5th century BC to the 5th century AD include reliefs of Athenian Decrees, Impressive Portraits, Roman Copies of Classical Masterpieces, and Depictions of Philosophers and Historical figures.
Artemis Brauronia Sanctuary, Classical and Hellenistic Votives, and Roman Votives are all part of the New Acropolis Museum collection.
A large portion of the New Acropolis Museum’s floor, both inside and out, is made from glass, allowing visitors to observe the excavations below. Additionally, it has an amphitheater, a virtual theater, and an exhibition hall. Furthermore, it has all the modern conveniences that one would expect from a 21st-century international museum.
See also:
The Acropolis Museum – Guide for 2022 – Tickets and Activities online https://www.welcome-greece.gr/the-acropolis-museum-greece-athens/