Saturday, 5 December 2009 –
there was an all day excursion to
the NEW ACROPOLIS MUSEUM
In the summer of 2009 the new Acropolis Museum opened, which is just
300 meters away from Acropolis. The architect was Mr. Bernard Tsoumi.
The cost of this building is 130 million euro and covers an area of
25,000 sq.m.
The exhibition area is 14,000 sq. m. and is ten times greater than the
old museum in the sacred rock of Acropolis.
The museum entrance is in the pedestrian street of Dionysios
Areopagitis, opposite of the new Acropolis entrance. In the museum
there are about 300 statues, pieces of the friezes as well as 4000
other smaller objects from the archaic, classical and afterclassical
period, which were in the old museum - or due to lack of space - were stored in warehouses.
It was in the 1980s when Mrs. Melina Merkouri, the culture minister
then, got this area of 180 sq.m., which was Makrigiannis camp before, for building the new museum. She connected the reconstruction of the new museum with the demand of the return of valuable art works which were removed by Lord Elgin in the early 19th century from Acropolis, especially the frieze of the Parthenon, which is now in the British Museum in London.
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