Μουσείο Ακρόπολης / Acropolis Museum

Το νέο Μουσείο Ακρόπολης

Η συμπύκνωση του αρχαιοελληνικού πολιτισμού, η σύνδεση σύγχρονης και αρχαίας Ελλάδας, η βιτρίνα του πολιτισμού μας, η ακτινοβολία του κλασικού στο μοντέρνο και του διαχρονικού στο παρόν, η προσφορά του σήμερα στην ιστορία του, η κουλτούρα που γέννησε τον πολιτισμό, η αναβίωση ενός μεγαλείου… Αντιγράφω εδώ το μικρό άρθρο του BBC (19 Ιουνίου 2009) για το νέο Μουσείο Ακρόπολης με αφορμή τα επίσημα εγκαίνιά του.

The long-awaited Acropolis Museum in Athens is to be unveiled later.
The modern glass and concrete building, at the foot of the ancient Acropolis, houses sculptures from the golden age of Athenian democracy.
The £110m ($182m; 130m euros) structure also offers panoramic views of the stone citadel where they came from.
Culture minister Antonis Samaras said he hoped it would be the "catalyst" for the return of the Parthenon sculptures from the British Museum.
Some of the sculptures, also known as the Elgin Marbles, originally decorated the Parthenon temple and have been in London since they were sold to the museum in 1817.
The museum has long argued that Greece has no proper place to put them - an argument the Greek government hopes the Acropolis Museum addresses.
Mr Samaras said: "After several adventures, obstructions and criticism, the new Acropolis Museum is ready: a symbol of modern Greece that pays homage to its ancestors, the duty of a nation to its cultural heritage."
The building, set out over three levels, holds about 350 artefacts and sculptures that were previously held in a small museum on top of the Acropolis.
Antique ceramics and sculptures are displayed on the first floor while the Caryatids - columns sculpted as females holding up the roof of a porch on the southern side of the Erechtheum temple - dominate the top of a glass ramp leading up the second floor.
'Act of barbarism'
Sculptures from the Temple of Athena and the Propylaea entrance to the Acropolis will be displayed on the second floor, while the third features a reconstruction of the Parthenon Marbles.
The reconstruction is based on several elements that remain in Athens as well as copies of the marbles still housed in the British Museum. The London institution holds 75 metres of the original 160 metres of the frieze that ran round the inner core of the building.
The copies of those held in the British Museum are differentiated by their white colour - because they are plaster casts, contrasting with the weathered marble of the originals.
Museum director Prof Dimitris Pandermalis said the opening of the museum provides an opportunity to correct "an act of barbarism" in the sculptures' removal.
"Tragic fate has forced them apart but their creators meant them to be together," he said.
Bernard Tschumi, the building's US-based architect, said: "It is a beautiful space that shows the frieze itself as a narrative - even with the plaster copies of what is in the British Museum - in the context of the Parthenon itself."
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/8110010.stm )