The Acropolis Museum
Preparations for the new Acropolis Museum, designed by renowned architect Bernard Tschumi and Michael Photiadis, are still at a very preliminary phase. With just a few excavations as testimony that something is being done, hopes have been dashed for presenting Athens’s summer visitors with a sparkling new museum at the foot of the Acropolis containing the sculptures of the Parthenon (and gaps where the pieces currently at the British Museum ought to be, driving home the point for their return). The chairman of the committee in charge of the new museum, Professor Dimitris Pantermallis, admitted not so long ago that not even a deal has yet been signed with an engineer to begin construction. It appears, therefore, that nothing about the new museum is going according to plan, and statements by former Culture Minister Evangelos Venizelos that a portion of the museum would be ready for the Games, appear, at least right now, to be nothing more than a midsummer night’s dream.
