The New Acropolis Museum

The New Acropolis Museum Review

I finally got a chance to visit the new Acropolis museum this summer a week after it opened. In fact I visited twice; first a week after it opened in June 2009, and then again in August 2009. I have to admit that I had missed seeing the incredible art all this years that the museum remained closed for the move. This is more a blog of my thoughts for the museum as a space and less about the artwork it contains.

After all the excitement generated by the media fanfare and my own anticipation, I have to say that my experienced was a mixed one. As much as I would love to write nothing but positive thoughts, the new Acropolis museum installed enough annoyances to make the experience less than perfect.


In a Nutshell

The Good: Beautiful architecture, chronological exhibition flow, uncrowded spacing of artifacts, free-standing statues away from walls, proximity to Acropolis, the amazing Parthenon gallery. The exposure of the archaeological digs below the museum and enhanced accessibility.

The Bad: Airport-type security, glass floors, and some architectural elements can be distracting. Insufficient attention to the post-ancient Acropolis and lack of a comprehensive museum guide.

The Ugly: Unfortunate administrative decisions regarding photography and airport-type security. Lighting (or lack thereof) is horrendous and unfaltering to the delicate statues that need illumination to stand out from the crowd and to reveal their mass, hue, and surface.

Wish List: Allow photography! Turn the lights on! Install more multimedia and interactive displays. Rooms dedicated to children's exploration of Greek history and culture with interactive displays and hands-on activities.


The New Acropolis Museum Building

First, I should say that the new Acropolis Museum building is stunning. Bernard Tschumi Architects did an excellent job designing a building worthy of the artwork it contains.

The most stunning feature of the museum is it's open floor design that exposes three thousand years of history through openings to view below it's foundations, and glass floors inside. Architecturally, this is an interesting feature but beyond the initial awe it inspires to the viewer it becomes a distraction and a nuisance for the visitors. More on this point later.

The layering of the site's history is immediately evident upon the approach to the museum's entrance. There is a large opening on the concrete floor that reveals a 7th century CE building, and then throughout the lobby and the first floor ramp a variety of excavations can be seen through the glass floor. This is certainly impressive as a feature and helps establish the density of historical events that the visitor is experiencing through the visit to the museum.

The forms of the building itself borrow freely from the nearby ancient monument. Its outline loosely shadows the outline of the Acropolis rock, and the rhythmic columns of its ground floor echo the columns of the Parthenon. The third floor is offset to the first floor in an identical alignment to the Parthenon's relationship to the Acropolis rock, orienting it to the same east/west axis.

The third floor contains the art of the Parthenon and it is designed perfectly to transplant the experience of the actual building which is viewed through the large northern windows. Speaking of windows, the extensive window surfaces offer amazing views of the modern city of Athens and are one of the highlights of the new museum, albeit making the comparison with the modern sea of cement with the refined ancient sensibilities inside and inevitable and painful necessity.

I can't help but think that the architects desired the juxtaposition that emphasizes the beauty of the ancient marbles at the expense of the modern city's chaotic layout.


Accessibility, Accommodations, and Information Design

This is the fist museum in Greece that excels in accessibility accommodations. There is a dedicated entrance for persons with special needs and large groups at Mitseon Street where parking for two cars and one minibus is provided. The entire museum is wheelchair accessible, and three wheelchairs are available free of charge at the checkroom. Elevators and escalators can be used to navigate the floors with ease, but seating space is limited in the galleries.

Eliminating congestion and making life easier for groups and individual visitors alike, tour buses use a dedicated drop off point at Hatzichristou street.

The museum's freely available plan is not very functional but it's available at the ticket counter. You will have to pick up your own copy from the box next to the cashier. With tiny and crowded print (don't forget your glasses), and no information regarding the kind of exhibited artifacts it's of little value. It's simply a floor plan and could be useful only for finding the general layout, the restaurants and the bathrooms.

Information about the artwork is minimal throughout the museum, but fairly functional. I am not aware of a competed museum guide that visitors can use to help them understand the exhibits, but I suspect several will surface in the coming months. Large posters with a synopsis accompanies the different themes, and all artifacts have minimal information posted (at least name, date, providence) in proximity to each.


The New Acropolis Museum Security Policies

The first surprise comes at the entrance. Everyone must submit to airport-type security check where every bag is x-rated and humans undergo the needless metal detector radiation treatment. This is the first museum administrative decision in a series of decisions that added a lot of annoyance to my visit and made the experience less than optimum.

Undergoing such security check, even such a mild one, it establishes that the museum visit is not going to be a mere cultural experience, but an immersion into a layer of examinations. The viewers examine the exhibited artifacts while they themselves are subject to constant observation and examination by an army of guards and security cameras. Its a relationship that mimics the experience of going through the airport or the nearby Athens Mall.

Maybe in a perverse kind of way the passage through the metal detector is designed to make visitors feel like they are embarking for a flight through history. It's not a big deal though, and I understand the need for security but I could not help but make the thoughts as I was try to find the answer to my thirteen year old daughter's innocent question "why do we have to got through metal detectors?"

Buying the tickets is a breeze, but the approach to the main exhibition space is underwhelming and somewhat obscured by large columns. Most people I saw tend to head for the museum's token shop before they eventually find their way to the turnstiles.


Photographing in the New Acropolis Museum

Soon after its opening, a new policy of the New Acropolis Museum prohibits all photography in the exhibitions, in a move that is sure to annoy thousands of visitors daily, myself included.

Needless to say, I find the policy irrational for many reasons. To deny visitors who traveled around the world to see the ancient artifacts the opportunity to take a photo is at best rude. Some visitors, myself included again, use photographing as a way to interact with the artwork, and as a way to study. Having my own collection of photographs to examine and to share with my students as an Art Professor has been priceless over the years.

At best, the New Acropolis museum, with it's very astute political overtone and policies, is missing out on the free advertisement that millions of visitors can afford them. At worst it's alienating its most stout supporters.

But why?

Curious, and annoyed at the guard's rude instructions to my daughter to put away her camera during our visit, I inquired as to why such policy was instituted. At first the guard attempted to invoke the "it's the rules" approach, but my insistence brought up the "for your own enjoyment" answer. To my innocent reply that we enjoy our visit more when we can photograph, he slyly implied that there are "other" reasons for the rule. The puzzled look in my face instigated the guard to help me out. He was clearly feeling superior for knowing secrets that I was ignoring and he tried to help me out: "here, turn and look around and you will know the 'other' reasons" he said.

I turned and looked at a beautiful museum that invited me to photograph. "Look down", he said "and look up". I was still mystified at the elusive reason to forbid photographing a very photogenic space. He gave up. "You see, the floors are all made of glass!" he exclaimed as he took two steps sideways, seemingly embarrassed himself about what he was implying. I am not sure if he made this up on the spot to get rid of me, or if this is really the instructions he was given but either way it brought to mind the profound Seferis verse: "Οπου κι αν ταξιδεψω η Ελλαδα με πληγωνει".

So the explanation is that photography is forbidden in the New Acropolis Museum because it's more enjoyable to see the art, and because the glass floors afford unfaltering views of the upper floor people.

Pathetic.

To generalize a little bit, it seems like a typically Greek administrative quagmire, where one bad decision, is followed by another bad policy that doesn't really remedy the first bad decision. Glass floors will stil aford unobtrusive views above, but that's apparently fine with the New Acropolis Museum administrators as long as photography of the ancient artifacts is forbidden.

I hope this policy is reversed soon.


The New Acropolis Museum Exhibition Design

The Museum fluid exhibition layout design allows the statues to exist in the visitor's space and be viewed from multiple angles. This is especially appropriate in the presentation of the Archaic free standing statues because they were originally displayed in proximity to the Acropolis visitors. Prior to that, the approaching ramp is majestically lined with artifacts and statues from the Mycenaean and Geometric eras, and it's framed at the upper end by a beautiful archaic pediment.

The Acropolis Museum's overall flow guides the visitors through a continuous chronological loop. From the initial ramp the viewer moves to the right through a maze of Archaic art all the way to the top floor which is dedicated to the art of the Parthenon. It's a logical progression that makes it easy to follow the styles and ideological evolution of Ancient Greek Art. The short documentary that plays in Greek by the museum entrance, and in English right out side the Parthenon Gallery in the third floor helps visitors understand a little more about the museum contents. It has one of the best descriptions of the Parthenont in 3D CGI that I have seen (despite the statue of Athena being a 2D surface), and some dramatic simulations of the Parthenon's destruction over the centuries.

The simulation of the early Christians climbing ladders and smashing the temple's decorations invoked the ire of the Greek church officials who objected to the footage shortly after the museum opened. According to the media, the objectionable footage was edited out, only to invoke the ire of the film director this time around. The dispute was resolved, and the footage was reinstated when the director, Costa Gavras, issued clarification that the film did not depict priests in black robes destroying the marbles, but instead "some early Christians". Nevertheless, the film is an interesting one to watch either at the beginning or the end of a visit to the New Acropolis Museum.

The chronological flow of the exhibitions gets a little murky when the art of the other known temples of the Acropolis is presented in the second floor. But that's understandable and even expected in a linear space.

Most impressive of all is the exhibition of the Kariatides, the Kores that hold up the Erechthion porch. Their placement affords dramatic views from the first floor and allows the viewer to examine them up close upon reaching the upper floor. I particularly enjoyed walking behind them and standing as if I were standing in the actual Erechteion porch, looking out. It's a view that a visitor to the acropolis would not be able to enjoy since the Erechtion interior is off limits to visitors.

Like I mentioned before, the Parthenon Gallery is the highlight of the museum, and a stunningly effective display of the temple's artwork. The entire floor simulates the exterior of the Parthenon temple in metric accuracy and allows for the display of the metopes and frieze in their proper sequence. For viewing convenience the height of the sculptures has been altered with the Pediment fragments placed lower than both the metopes and the frieze. The sculptures are still placed higher than eye level, since in the actual temple they were placed high above the colonnade, but are still within comfortable distance to examine their details.

The original sculptures appear in their natural state, while unfinished white plaster casts complete the compositions and the sequence. On the one hand, this gives a more accurate description of the completed sculptural sequences, and on the other hand it emphasizes the absense of the marbles that are exiled in a foreign land museum. Where pieces have been lost, the inclusion of small replicas of drawings made by Carrey or others give us some clue as to what is been missing. They appear next to the very useful labels that accompany each section.

Inside the simulated temple, the backs of the frieze have been exposed and dramatically lit. Seeing the backs of the marble blocks, with their point-chisel marks is a rare opportunity, and it demonstrates that the Parthenon frieze was not a simple decoration that was added to the temple, but was instead an integral part of the structure and should not be taken away from their context. It's a clear message that Elgin had no business sawing them up, and it's an argument squarely aimed at the British Museum that hosts the missing (and maimed) Parthenon marbles.

Perhaps I would expect too much if I thought that the interior of the ancient temple should also be represented in the Parthenon Gallery. Instead, the interior of the third Acropolis Museum floor is occupied with the staircase and what looks like a make-shift theater where the aforementioned Costa Gavras documentary is projected in English (with horrible sound I may add). Perhaps its' a missed chance (or a future opportunity) to pay tribute to Pheidas' gold and ivory giant statue of Athena, which was after all the main purpose for the Parthenon's existence.


Reconstructions, Plans, and Replicas

Replicas and reconstruction views of the Acropolis in various stages over the centuries are instructive, and the models of the various buildings, like the Erecthion and the temple of Athena Nike, are most welcome next to the artifacts.