The New Acropolis Museum in Athens is a boldly designed landmark of contemporary architecture, that boasts brilliant natural light, glass floors that afford views onto the archaeological excavation sites below and a top level that is rotated several degrees in relation to the building's lower floors in order to orient the famous ancient Parthenon Frieze, displayed on the top story, in exactly the same direction that it was in ancient times. Opened to the public in 2009, this museum is the work of Bernard Tschumi, who won a design competition in 2001 with an entry that outlined, the architect said, a "simple and precise museum with the mathematical and conceptual clarity of ancient Greece." Located in Athens' historic area of Makryianni, the museum stands less than 1,000 feet southeast of the Parthenon, at the entrance of a network of pedestrian walkways that provide access to the Acropolis. Professor Dimitrios Pandermalis, President of the Organization for the Construction of the New Acropolis Museum, has hailed the design for its "simple, clear, and beautiful solution that is in accord with the beauty and classical simplicity of the Museum's unique exhibits"; Pandermalis contributes the preface to this volume, one in Poligrafa's new series of monographs on new museum architecture.
