After about five years construction, the new Acropolis Museum will open to the public on June 20 where visitors can see its significant collections of classical Greek sculpture, said Christos Failadis, the Press and Communication Counselor for the embassy of Greece in China.

Covering 25,000 square meters, the new Acropolis museum is located blow the well-known Parthenon temple of the Acropolis. The new Acropolis Museum comprises three levels. The base of the museum design "hovers" over the existing archaeological excavation. The middle is a large, trapezoidal hall that accommodates galleries from the archaic to roman period. A mezzanine level includes a bar and restaurant with views towards the Acropolis, and a multimedia auditorium. The top comprises the rectangular Parthenon Gallery arranged around an indoor court.

The Parthenon temple of Acropolis in Athens and the new Acropolis museum about 300 meters below the Parthenon temple
Mr. Failadis said that the extensive use of glass allows natural light into the museum and all the visitors can see the Parthenon temple clearly through the glass-walled gallery where the treasures of the Parthenon are displayed. Furthermore, the museum contains a glass floored entrance ramp overlooking the in-situ excavations on the site below.

Mr. Failadis also stressed that the unique design of the new museum is the 160-meter-long frieze wrapped around the central core of the gallery and with the Greek originals coated in a soft brown plating standing alongside white-plaster copies of the Parthenon sculpture sections removed by Lord Elgin some 200 years ago when the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire ruled Greece. The Greeks hope that public opinion will slowly force a change of heart in London, according to a British Newspaper.

The Parthenon temple of Acropolis in Athens
To protect the sculptures of the Acropolis of Athens from pollution, most of the marble sculptures should be carefully moved indoors, but the old museum built 200 years ago can not accommodate the treasures. And this is another important element in deciding to build the new museum, Mr. Failadis said.

By People's Daily Online