acropolis museum
Warning, unhinged rambling ahead:
So the museum itself is kinda boring tbh, but what stuck out to me was its architectural design and use of space.
The museum was built over a dig site, partially to protect the site from rain and snow, but partially to make the dig site an exhibit unto itself. The museum floor has giant holes or glass floors so you’re always reminded of the civilization underneath your feet. Sometimes its a couple yards, sometimes its hundreds of feet down, but it’s always there.
The museum’s subject is the acropolis, a series of buildings at the top of a mountain in Athens. The layout of the museum mirrors the layout of the acropolis itself:
The lower levels of the museum have exhibits on the lower areas of the acropolis, the houses in the surrounding neighborhood, the baths and restaurants and such.
The middle of the museum has exhibits on the items surrounding the Parthenon, and the very center of the museum hosts the statues at the very center of the Parthenon.
The top of the museum has exhibits on the Parthenon itself, and the very top of the museum has a recreation of the statues that surrounded the top of the Parthenon. Climbing up the museum almost feels like you’re climbing up and looking through the acropolis and Parthenon itself.
I mentioned that the ground floor has glass so you can see the dig site, but the glass doesn’t stop there. Each floor you go up, you can see the one’s below you, a sort of reminder of what came before you. The acropolis itself was an attempt by the Greek to build and build on top of itself, culminating in the Parthenon, a temple meant to connect to the Gods themselves. The museum’s emphasis of the layers that came before serve as a reminder that there are always others that came before us, stories that we have built our own story off of.
