The Acropolis Museum: Contextual Contradictions, Conceptual Complexities

Abstract

Drawing on the public debates on the location of the new site museum exhibiting the sculptures and other artefacts of the iconic Athenian Acropolis, the author highlights the complexity of integrating a new site-specific museum to a historically charged urban monumental and cultural landscape. By presenting 13 alternative viewpoints on the topic of this museum's location together with the respective museological concepts debated during the planning stage, this paper delineates the various conceptual hierarchies on the notions of ‘context’ and ‘content’ in the relationship between the museum and its cultural landscape.