The New Acropolis Museum opens its doors to the world
Today in Athens, the long awaited New Acropolis Museum opens its doors to the world. Sarah Foden has been to check it out for herself.
Wednesday 24th June 2009
By Sarah Foden
This week in Athens, the long awaited and much anticipated New Acropolis Museum opened its doors to the public.
Following a rather impressive launch party broadcast to the world last Saturday night, people will this week be flocking from around the globe for their own glimpse of nearly 4,000 artefacts discovered by archaeologists on the site of the Acropolis of Athens.
Spread over 25,000 square metres with an exhibition space of over 14,000 square metres this museum is more than ten times larger than the previous Acropolis museum.
I was one of the lucky few who were given the opportunity to get a sneak preview of this magnificent building and a peep at the stunning treasures inside before the doors opened this morning.
This stunning museum, designed by Bernard Tschumi has been designed to provide a suitable home for the missing pieces known as the Elgin Marbles which can be currently found in the British Museum.
Lord Elgin removed the marbles from the Parthenon temple on the Acropolis when he was visiting Greece and sold them to the British Museum in 1817, which is where they have remained ever since along with other surviving sculptures.
One of the reasons for the United Kingdom refusing to return them is that there wasn't a suitable home for them in Greece. This is now a very different story, with the designs of the building being shaped to address this claim.
Unsurprisingly, the museum has been inundated with bookings and to get your hands on some tickets for this summer you better be quick off the mark.
→ Page 2: What you'll see here
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