The Acropolis Museum

The Acropolis Museum is an archaeological museum focused on the findings of the archaeological site of the Acropolis of Athens. Foundations were laid in 1865 for the original Acropolis Museum on the Hill of the Acropolis, and various rebuilds and extensions took place over the years until the 1970s, when it was felt that the original Museum could no longer cope satisfactorily with its large number of visitors.

The vision for the contemporary Acropolis Museum was first conceived by Constantinos Karamanlis in September 1976. Following the discovery of a large urban settlement on the Makriyianni site dating from Archaic to Early Christian Athens, an invitation to tender was announced in the year 2000, with this discovery to be integrated into the new museum. The design tender was awarded to Bernard Tschumi with Michael Photiadis, with the construction completed in 2007 and Museum publicly opened in 2009. Today, the new Acropolis Museum has a total area of 25,000 square meters, with exhibition space of over 14,000 square meters. (Acropolis Museum)

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