It is rather touching that, in a world driven by PR and Communication, the Greeks should have absolutely no concept of either (think Greek Olive Oil, the best in the world, sold under Italian labels). Greece has become a toeless nation thanks to her bewildering tendency to shoot herself in the foot. I refer, this time, to the opening of the magnificent new Acropolis Museum, the renewed request for the return of the “Elgin” Marbles, and the Museum’s awesome Department of Dysfunctional Relations.

The DDR has alighted on three Golden Rules for coping with the pressures of public interest:

1. Do not respond. Ever.

2. Above all, do not say anything you could be held to.

3. Should you inadvertently infringe Rule 2 (above) – well, promises were made to be broken.

Last year, after several months trying to secure an interview with the Museum’s very-busy Director, our meeting was cancelled as I was on my way to Athens, apparently because he had gone on holiday. This year, I decided to go through an inside track (so my secret source slaved around the clock to combat Rule 1), only to arrive at the Museum at the appointed hour – after the official opening but before the public opening – to be told nobody knew anything about our appointment. Only some deft string-pulling by the delightful Tina Daskalantonakis, owner of the King George Palace Hotel, got us into the building at all. Naturally (under Rule 3), the promised guide did not show. And I still had no reply as to whether or not the Director might be available to grant me an interview, that afternoon, for a piece in the highest-circulation UK broadsheet (the paradigmatic application of Rule 2). Now, remember – the Greeks want their Marbles back… Fortunately, the gods were on my side and we chanced upon the Director in the cafe. The DDR had not foreseen that eventuality. I got my interview.

To be fair, the Director (actually, the President, but we’ll let that confusion ride) is something of a hero in the saga of the Museum: an Augeus endlessly shovelling out the muck thrown in to clog the works. He has personally attended 130 court cases that arose from the discovery of ruins beneath the proposed Museum, and the demolition of neighbouring Neoclassical buildings that obstructed sightlines to the Acropolis. He also managed to survive successive changes of Government during the 30 years since the project was first mooted, to see the Museum through to its triumphant opening. While politicians squabble over who is to take credit, the quietly academic Professor Dimitris Pandermalis gets on with it.

And so, on 20 June, five years behind schedule, the new Acropolis Museum finally opened its doors to the world. The design of Swiss-born architect Bernard Tschumi is nothing less than a miraculous: a building of glass, steel, concrete and marble that squats like an oblate Rubik’s Cube at the foot of the Sacred Hill. It is, says Tschumi, referring to the scene-stealing Bilbao Museum, an ‘anti-Guggenheim’, in that its understatement allows the exhibits to shine. And ‘shine’ is the operative word: the intelligent glass walls and floors of the core building suffuse the building with light that creates a dialogue of dancing shadows with the sculptures. How different from the joyless Duveen Gallery in London.

There are 4,000 artefacts are on display, from Archaic to Roman times, including 325 pieces from Athens’ Golden Age of Pericles. Some are on show for the first time; familiar pieces invite new understanding. The five Caryatids of the Erechtheion, for example (the sixth languishes in the gloom of London) can, for the first time ever, be viewed in the round. From the ground floor, which gently slopes to echo the climb up to the Acropolis, to the top floor Parthenon Gallery twisted through 23 degrees to align perfectly with the temple of Athena visible above, the Museum is a work of genius.

Should the Elgin Marbles now be returned to Athens? In my humble view – shared by some 26 international societies lobbying to that end – the answer is a resounding yes. I shall not attempt to describe the Parthenon Gallery; nor the brilliant context in which the story of the remaining marbles of the pediments, metope and frieze have been related; nor yet the dignified manner in which they grieve the absence of their amputated narrative. Go and see it. In the words of Professor Pandermalis, the sculptures speak for themselves.

The DDR, meantime, still nurses its unblemished reputation for non-communication. I suspect they are double agents in the secret employ of the British Museum to sabotage the Greek cause. And save yourself the hassle of obtaining gold-dust tickets by checking into the elegant King George Palace Hotel, a 10-minute walk away. Their obliging staff will smooth your passage through the byzantine labyrinth of Greek bureaucracy, so you don’t lose your own marbles in the process.

www.theacropolismuseum.gr; www.classicalhotels.com/kinggeorgepalace

For more details on Athens, see The Athens Report on the Globalista website

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1. Akis says:

   July 3, 2009 at 2:13 pm

   The museum was a joke as most things are in Greece where it comes to professionalism. And I have a little story about that:

   When I was at a cultural conference in Athens in 2003 (This one: http://www.fhw.gr/conferences/ccdt/2003/en/page08d.html), they invited Michalis Fotiadis the greek partner of the architecture company that had designed the new acropolis museum to present the project. (In the program he is in Session D, 10:30)

   The architect congratulated for the great design ( which in my opinion looks like a confused mix between a government intelligence building and fascist Nazi architecture)and was asked how they planned to clean this huge window surface for which the design didn’t seem to include the necessary infrastructure.

   Michalis Fotiadis replied: “eee…It shouldn’t be that hard to do it with a watering hose…”

   I wish I could have that in video!!!

   > The new Acropolis Museum
   Designed by archiects Bernard Tchumi and Greek architect Michalis Fotiadis, the new museum was completed in 2008 after years of debate and two international design competitions.