Athens, Greece

So my Spring Break to Greece was absolutley amazing. It was my favorite city that I have visited so far (besides Barcelona of course!) Athens is so incredibly rich with history that I could hardly stand it! I loved it!

The first hour we were there I went to the Acropolis... it was just as incredible as I pictured it, walking through the Propylaeum, I felt so small compared to the buildings around me. As I caught a glimpse of the Parthenon, I quickly remembered History of Arch 1 when I learned that the Parthenon was placed on an axis so that it was seen in perspective. It looked so grand sitting there ontop of the city of Athens! I looked to the left and saw the Erectheion sitting in a grassy patch surrounded by yellow flowers. The Porch of the Maidens was beautiful and so elegant. I walked around for quiet some time before I took a seat next to the Parthenon to sketch. What I found very interesting about the Acropolis was that history today seems to be represented as voids in our perception... A hole in the ground with ruins in it, or a pile of columns laying in the middle of the Agora that one used to stand high supporting an important structure in history. The Acropolis is the exact opposite, it sits high over Athens with much of it's structure still in tack... thanks to hundreds of years of preservation!

On the walk to the Acropolis we noticed a building that was still under construction but nearly finished. The building is called "A New Museum for the Acropolis" by Bernard Tschumi. The building is perfect for my study! It completley sums up how the old must meet the new. From the top of the Acropolis, it was easy to see how the building got its orientation. The building is essentially two boxes ontop of one another. The bottom box aligns itself with the Acropolis itself, and the top box aligns itself with the Parthenon.

The next morning, we were able to take a tour of the museum and walk around the groups and a part of the interior. The first thing I noticed of how the old met the new was that, yet again, it didn't. The building itself hovers on 100 concrete pillars over the archaeological ruins of an ancient Athenian city. Walking around the entrance of the museum, the concrete floor turns into glass at various times and you are literally walking overtop of the ruins. In front of the main entrance doors, there is a large oval opening that reveals the ruins underneath without any glass in the way. Inside of the museum, the glass panels on the floor continue, but the lighting inside of the museum makes the ruins underneath so much easier to see. There are many parts of the museum where you look down and the landscape slopes down so you are about 40 feet above the ruins. It's remarkable how well designed the building is. Inside the museum, where the floor turns into glass, the ceiling above the glass forms a glass box emphasizing the importance of that particular area from the rest of the building.

In the case of this building, the old did not touch the new which seems to be a current theme on my research of how the old and the new meet. The museum held such great respect for the Athenian city that the Athenian city became one with the museum. It's incredible how walk ontop of it and look down and can see the footprint of what used to be there. The museum obviously respected the Acropolis, but how they oriented it was very subtle and elegant. This building has become one of my favorite buildings and I really enjoyed studying it.