Architects Bernard Tschumi designed a New Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece. The museum offers an archaeological treasure from Acropolis. Glass walls allow viewers to see in natural light. More than 100 concrete pillars support the structure over the remains of an ancient Athenian city.
New Acropolis Museum is a historic masterpiece in archaeological remains of ancient Athens. It is visible beneath building of glorious Parthenon frieze will displayed for the first time at the opening of Museum on June 20, 2009. The Museum presents a number of temporary exhibitions in a lower floor gallery over the past. With official opening, the visitors will view full suite of galleries, presented in a dramatic architectural feel.
The museum has more than 150,000 square feet of exhibition space which is ten times more than previous Acropolis museum. The New Acropolis Museum displays surviving antiquities from Acropolis and will serve as a catalyst to strengthen international interest for classical world as 226,000 square feet. Museum defines cultural project for Greece and becomes a key reference point for art community around the world. To present unmatched collection, the architect and lead designer Bernard Tschumi created a non-monumental structure, the simple and precise design of which invokes mathematical and conceptual clarity of ancient Greek architecture.
The museum is designed in three layers, with a base, a middle zone, and a top. The base floats on more than 100 slender concrete pillars, which have been separately positioned with the help of experts. This level contains main entrance lobby and temporary exhibition spaces, in addition to openings and glass floors looking onto archaeological excavations. A glass slope leads to a double-height space in middle section, which has permanent collection galleries from Archaic to late Roman period, and a mezzanine level with catering sites and a public patio.
The building concludes in Parthenon Gallery, a rectangular, glass-enclosed, and lit by sky space that is rotated 23 degrees from rest of the building to align with Parthenon. Glass outer walls of the gallery allow visitors 360-degree views of the ancient temple and the nearby city. In the middle of Parthenon Gallery, the rectangular concrete core of Museum offers as the wall on which Parthenon frieze is exhibited.
Thus the New Acropolis Museum has many features of galleries for permanent collection, galleries for special exhibitions, a 200-seat auditorium, a multimedia space, a Museum store, a bar and restaurant, and support facilities. The museum is surrounded by 75,000 square feet landscaped gardens.