Acropolis Museum

The Acropolis Museum stands at Dionysiou Areopagitou 15 in Athens, about 300 metres southeast of the Parthenon. Designed by Bernard Tschumi and opened in 2009, the building was created to house the finds from the Acropolis, and it holds a collection of several thousand objects from the sacred rock, from the Archaic period through Roman times. The glass-and-concrete structure is built above an excavated Athenian neighbourhood, which visitors can see through glass floors in the entrance level and from walkways beneath the building. The collection is arranged by period. The ground-floor gallery of the slopes holds finds from the hillside sanctuaries, while the Archaic gallery displays painted korai, the standing female statues that once lined the sanctuary of Athena. The highlight is the top floor Parthenon Gallery, a glass hall oriented to match the temple itself and rotated to the angle of the monument visible through the windows. Here the frieze, metopes and pediment sculptures are shown at eye level; where original pieces are in the British Museum in London, plaster casts fill the gaps, a deliberate display that frames the long-running debate over their return. The original Caryatids from the Erechtheion are shown in a dedicated gallery with natural light. A full visit takes two to three hours, although a focused tour of the main galleries can be done in ninety minutes. A rooftop-level restaurant and a café offer views of the Acropolis, and the ground floor includes a shop and an area for temporary exhibitions. Short films in the Parthenon Gallery explain the history of the monument and its sculptures. Crowds are heaviest in mid-morning and early afternoon, particularly when cruise ships are in port. Late afternoon and the later opening hours on some evenings are quieter, and the Parthenon Gallery is especially atmospheric as light changes over the Acropolis. Visitors who tour the museum first often arrive at the Parthenon with a clearer idea of what once stood there, while those who go afterwards can compare the casts and originals. Photography is permitted in most galleries without flash, with some restrictions in the Parthenon Gallery that staff will point out. The museum is within walking distance of Acropolis metro station, along the pedestrianised Dionysiou Areopagitou street in the Makrygianni district of Athens, Greece.