Acropolis Museum

The Acropolis Museum stands at the foot of the Acropolis in the Makrygianni district of Athens, on Dionysiou Areopagitou Street, and was designed by the architect Bernard Tschumi with Michael Photiadis. It opened in June 2009, replacing an older museum on the rock, and is dedicated to the finds from the Acropolis and its slopes. The collection spans from the Archaic period to the Roman and early Christian era, with the Classical sculptures of the 5th century BC at the centre.

The building is arranged in three principal levels, with a glass floor at the entrance that reveals the excavation of an ancient Athenian neighbourhood beneath it, dating from the Archaic to the early Byzantine periods. The Archaic Gallery on the first floor includes the Moschophoros (calf-bearer) and the Kore statues of the Acropolis, whose painted pigment traces are still visible. The Caryatids, the original maidens from the Erechtheion, are displayed with a space left for a missing figure taken by Lord Elgin. The top-floor Parthenon Gallery is the museum's centrepiece: a glass hall aligned with the orientation of the Parthenon itself, with views of the temple from the windows. The 160-metre frieze is displayed on a concrete core matching the dimensions of the cella, with original slabs in marble and plaster casts of the pieces held in the British Museum and elsewhere, shown in a different colour to mark what is missing. Metopes and pediment sculptures are also shown.

The approach is chronological and thematic, with sculptures presented at eye level and in natural light. The museum is a central actor in the long-running dispute over the return of the Parthenon Sculptures from the British Museum, and the Parthenon Gallery presents the case through the gaps in the display. The museum also holds a restaurant with views of the Acropolis, a shop and a conservation lab visible to visitors. Labels are in Greek and English, and a full visit takes around two to three hours.