Now arriving in Terminal 2, Northwest Airlines Flight 1723 from Dubuque…Oh, wait a minute. This is the new Acropolis Museum. (Photos by Sebastian Puig.)
For the first decade of the 19th century, the be-wigged Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin – a.k.a. Lord Elgin – in addition to carrying out his duties as the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire – kept himself entertained during his deployment in Athens by prying off the ancient marble friezes that decorated the Parthenon, slicing the mighty stones into slabs as thin as crumpets, and then carrying them back to jolly old England, where he ultimately sold them to the British Museum for a paltry £35,000. Needless to say, the Greeks have been wanting for them back for ages. And the Brits have refused to return them just as long.
Well, wake up you Brits! Because with the opening of the fab new Acropolis Museum this year, all of the bogus arguments for keeping the Parthenon frieze in London have been deflated. What a showplace! (Seriously, the Greeks haven’t come up with anything to be this proud of since the invention of stuffed grape leaves.) While the elegant galleries can be crowded (admission is one thin euro!), the stroll through the museum never seems rushed, and the meander (note Greek-derived word choice) through the high-ceilinged galleries takes just long enough to absorb — in a serene way — the many layers of Hellenic art and archaeology from the archaic age to the golden age. Designers of failed museum structures take note: focus on the art, the air around it, and the way it is lit, and the people will come. (Museé d’Orsay, anyone?)
Above all, the museum does a fine job of conveying the history of the beleaguered Parthenon, which, over the course of its long life, has been a temple to Athena, a church, a mosque and one of the world’s biggest pieces of tourist bait. (It’s even been a backdrop to one supremely cheesy, lite music pianist.) Inside the penthouse gallery, a digital recreation recounts this storied life, showing early Christians on scaffolding hacking away at the heads of ‘heathen’ gods with sledgehammers. There are also explosions, implosions, and the construction of a mosque and minaret within the hilltop ruins. (Talk about adaptive re-use!). But the greatest venom is saved for the nasty Lord Elgin, who is described as having “violently removed” the friezes.
The Bernard Tschumi-designed museum has evaporated, with a gazillion-dollar gesture, all of the rationalization by the Brits about why London, not Athens, is the right place for the friezes. The splendid new palace to art has climate control to shield the contents from Athens’ famous smog, as well as state-of-the-art everything. It’s got context in the nearby placement of the many centuries-worth of Greek art that culminated in the Age of Pericles, and most of all it’s got LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION. Not to overlook the fact that the friezes were the victims of a cultural rape; it’s nice to reverse such situations. And to those who cry, “Scary precedent!” we say that we don’t think St. Mark’s Basilica will have to return the four bronze horses to Constantinople anytime soon. Let’s take it case by case, shall we?
Unfortunately, we were limited on the picture taking. (Photography was prohibited indoors – not that it entirely stopped us.) But, here’s a small taste on what was the ancient – and will hopefully be the future – home of the Parthenon marbles. In these galleries, the spirit of Melina Mercouri, the “hostess” with a heart o’ gold in Never on Sunday, lives on. As Greek Minster of Culture in the ’80s and early ’90s, she fought for the return of those rocks until the day she died.
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