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The Acropolis Museum: Contextual Contradictions, Conceptual Complexities by Ersi Filippopoulou

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The Acropolis Museum: Contextual Contradictions, Conceptual Complexities by Ersi Filippopoulou The Acropolis Museum: Contextual Contradictions, Conceptual Complexities by Ersi Filippopoulou 20 | MUSEUM international rsi Filippopoulou is an architect and a jurist, specialised in archaeological museums planning and programming. She served as Director Eof Museum Studies in the Greek Ministry of Culture, and was also responsible for the new Acropolis museum project over 18 years. She worked as Director of the Greek Managing Authority for the European Union, co-financed cultural projects for six years. She served as an adjunct faculty member at the Departments of Architecture of the Universities of Thessaloniki and Patras, Greece. She was elected chairperson of the ICOM International Committee for Architecture and Museum Techniques (ICAMT) twice on a three-year mandate. Since 2012, she has been working as an advisor on heritage issues to the Peloponnese Regional Governor. She recently published a book entitled Τo neo Mouseio tis Acropolis—dia Pyros kai Sidirou, which retraces the new Acropolis Museum’s tumultuous history from its inception to its inauguration (Papasotiriou Publishers 2011). Her current research project is a comparative approach to the Greek archaeological museum paradigm. MUSEUM international | 21 he visitor to the new Acropolis Museum in Athens, climbing to the up- per floor and passing through the exhibition gallery door to an all-glass space flooded with natural light, is suddenly awestruck by the breathtak- ing view of the Parthenon rising up above the surrounding city (Fig. 1). Enjoying the holistic experience inspired by the natural and cultural landscape, the viewer is unaware of past controversies about the mu- seum’s location, and is certain that is the right place to be for anyone wishing to admire the ancient monument together with its architectur- al sculptures. However, tracking in retrospect the multiple factors that contributed to the final outcome can provide useful insights into the multi-faceted relationship between a new museum and its cultural landscape. The strongly picturesqueT Acropolis is understood here as a cultural landscape as articulated by Carl Sauer’s ter- connotation of the term minology, which designates ‘cultural landscapes’ as natural landscape that had been ‘landscape’ incorporates modified by a culture group (Sauer 1925). However, with a history of 2,500 years, its both the visual act character is now mainly monumental and archaeological, with ancient temples rec- and its imaginative ognised by UNESCO as ‘the greatest architectural and artistic complex bequeathed associations that are by Greek Antiquity to the world’ and ‘universal symbols of the classical spirit and deeply intertwined civilization’ (UNESCO 1987). The Acropolis is also an emblem of the modern Greek in many cultural nation-state, and a sense of sacredness therefore persists even in the secular environ- landscapes. ment of today’s metropolitan area of 3.75 million inhabitants (Rossi 1982). Therefore, the strongly picturesque connotation of the term ‘landscape’ incorporates both the visual act and its imaginative associations that are deeply intertwined in many cul- tural landscapes (Cosgrove 1998; Debarbieux 1995; Monnet 2011). The Acropolis museum houses and displays the architectural sculptures removed from their original position on the monuments of Acropolis for preservation rea- sons, as well as the finds from the 19th century archaeological excavations on the site. Consequently, it is an archaeological site-specific museum, but also an art museum when considering the quality of its exhibits and the visitor experience. Fig. 1. The Acropolis and the Parthenon, viewed from the museum’s Parthenon gallery. © Ersi Filippopoulou 22 | MUSEUM international Fig. 2. The Acropolis and the museum (right), viewed from Philopappou Hill. © Ersi Filippopoulou The Acropolis of Athens: 5,000 years of continuous history thens, a city both ancient and mod- lthough the hill’s top surface had fter the 6th century AD, under Aern, was erected in a valley that is Abeen populated since the end of the Athe successive domination of the surrounded by mountains on three Neolithic period (3200 BC), it acquired Byzantines, the French, the Catalans, sides, and stretches down to the sea on a religious character in the 8th century the Venetians and the Florentines, the the fourth. Embracing several hills, the BC, dedicated mainly to the city’s patron citadel was used as a fortress and the mid-rise modern cityscape is dominat- goddess Athena, the goddess of wisdom, Parthenon as a Christian church, with ed by the emblematic Acropolis, a flat- connected to the founding myth of the the latter subsequently converted into topped rocky hill that rises 156 metres city-state. Various porous rock temples a mosque in the 15th century under above sea level and up 100 metres from and shrines were erected during the ar- Ottoman rule. Adaptive re-use safe- its base, with overall dimensions of ap- chaic period (7th-6th centuries BC), guarded the classical temples’ structur- proximately 170 × 350 metres. Steep on which were destroyed by the invading al integrity until the 17th century AD, all sides except the western one, the Persian army and replaced in the 5th when it became seriously compromised Acropolis was erected as a citadel and century with the all-marble classical ed- by various human-induced interven- a place of worship with temples of great ifices we admire today: the three temples tions. Following Athens’ independence artistic significance on the plateau at its (Parthenon, Athena Nike, Erechtheion) from the Ottoman occupation in 1833, peak in Antiquity.1 The combined re- and the entrance building (Propylaea). Acropolis was declared an archaeologi- sult of the geological formation and the Smaller shrines and hundreds of votive cal site in 1834 and participated for the human interventions constitute a mon- statues completed the imposing image, second time since antiquity in another umental ensemble and a cultural land- declaring to allies and enemies the city’s strongly symbolic narrative; this time scape of outstanding universal value, grandeur (Korres et al.). it was related to the glorification of the both a landmark and a symbol associ- Hellenic classicism by Europeans and ated with democracy, philosophy and Greeks alike. Athens—a small, provin- art. It is no coincidence that even today cial town of approximately 10,000 peo- Greeks refer to it as the ‘Sacred Rock’ ple at that time—was chosen as the lib- (Fig. 2). erated nation’s capital due to its ancient history. The Acropolis was endowed with the aura of the most glorious land- mark in the monumental topography of the country. In 1987 it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Acropolis was endowed with the aura of the most glorious landmark in the monumental topography of the country. In 1987 it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. MUSEUM international | 23 Fig. 3 The ‘old’ Acropolis museum. © Ersi Filippopoulou The first Acropolis site museum fter the Ottoman additions were espite two small-scale extensions Aretrieved from the site, a small Dat the end of the 19th and in the site museum was constructed (1863- mid-20th centuries, the overall exhi- 1874) just a few metres southeast of the bition space of 1,150 sq. metres and the Parthenon. Dedicated only to the classi- small underground storage room re- cal art of the Acropolis and with its vol- mained disproportionate to the num- ume above ground kept to a minimum, ber and worth of the objects. However, the small edifice’s mission was to retain due to the close proximity to the ancient the excavated findings in a safe havenin monuments, the exhibits were connect- situ.2 For more than a century, the loca- ed to their origin in an optimal fashion tion of the new museum near the classi- and the museum functioned as an inte- cal temples was not disputed, despite the gral part of the site’s cultural landscape, aesthetic ideas inspired by Grand Tour enriching the visitor’s experience with travellers, whose gaze tended to favour multifaceted spatial and historical rela- The first Acropolis ancient ruins as ‘romantic landscapes’. tionships. However, as concepts change museum functioned Nevertheless, almost immediately after over time, the museum’s location, long as an integral part its opening, the small building proved considered as an asset, began to be ques- inadequate for the suddenly increased tioned sporadically in the 1960s and of the site’s cultural needs of its reserve collection, which was 1970s by Greek art scholars, firstly for landscape, enriching extensively enriched with the finds of its close vicinity to the ancient monu- the visitor’s experience the archaic era that came to light during ments of excellence (Fig. 3), and second- with multifaceted the site archaeological excavations of ly for the compact display of the archi- 1885-1889. Due to space shortage, only tectural sculptures in the small galleries spatial and historical sculptures were housed within the mu- (Prokopiou 1965; Laskaris 1975a, 1975b).3 relationships. seum, while the other items were either transferred to the then-new National Archaeological Museum (bronze fig- urines, pottery, coins, etc.), or left out- doors (plain architectural members and epigraphic inscriptions). 24 | MUSEUM international Fig. 4. The museum in its urban environment, as viewed from the Acropolis. © Ersi Filippopoulou An acute space problem he rather relaxed search for more lthough it took years to accept the he prevailing concept for the new Tmuseum space entered an urgent Ainevitability of such a drastic inter- Tmuseum was that of a shelter, a new phase in 1975. It was then that the vention, it was soon obvious that more Noah’s Ark for antiquities, a modest Greek State launched a (still ongoing) museum space was needed, not only space that was expected to guarantee the extensive restoration programme on for exhibition but also for conservation, appropriate indoor air quality and envi- the Acropolis monuments in order to storage and appropriate visitors’ facil- ronmental conditions for safeguarding reverse cumulative natural and human- ities.
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