It’s a hot day in Athens and a builder working on the new $178 million Acropolis Museum pauses to wipe his brow and stare up at the 2,500-year-old Parthenon.
At the same time, Elly Kouremenos looks out of the apartment she’s lived in for 72 years and wonders why the view from the museum means her home must be razed.
“They’re trying to make us vanish,” said Kouremenos, 85. “It’s as though there’s nothing between. No neoclassicism, no Art Nouveau.” The white-haired great-grandmother looks at her pink and gray marble Art Deco apartment building and says: “We’re going straight from antiquity to now.”
The future of her block, once declared a work of art by the Greek Ministry of Culture, and its neoclassical neighbor, owned by Oscar-winning composer Vangelis Papathanasiou, has caused a furor, pitting architects against archeologists.
The properties prevent a view of the Acropolis from the ground floor and mezzanine of the museum, which has also faced criticism over growing costs and delays as the government seeks a world-class structure to house the Elgin marbles, sculptures it wants the British Museum to return.
In July, the Central Archaeological Council voted to remove protection for the houses at Dionysiou Areopagitou Street, a move that usually leads to demolition. Christos Zahopoulos, the secretary-general of the ministry who used his second vote when the decision was split 12 and 12, is unrepentant.
“The main thing is the unification of the archaeological sites,” he said. “We must have thematic unity.”
For Elly’s daughter Marina, 56, the decision is inexplicable. A condition of the museum-design competitions was that the homes stay, says Kouremenos, who was born in the block, built for her family by her great-uncle, Vassilis Kouremenos. She wants officials to consider landscaping or renovation and is prepared for legal action.
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“We’re not the only ones who spoil the view,” Kouremenos said. “Wherever you turn in this museum, which is all glass, you see Athens: balconies, antennas, washing hanging out.”
The next stage must be “thorough discussion,” said Dimitris Pandermalis, 67, the archaeology professor who heads the museum project. “It can’t look out on anything else but the Acropolis,” he says in a telephone interview, suggesting the homes could possibly be moved: “The thing I want is their removal from that position. It’s something the visitor will demand.”
The protection order was imposed in 1978 by Stefanos Manos, then minister for public works, to prevent over-commercialization of the Acropolis, which is called the “sacred rock” by Athenians.
A decade later, the culture ministry said the Kouremenos building, with its marble facade and mosaic of Oedipus and the Sphinx, was a work of art, providing additional protection. Its architect, Kouremenos, studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. The carved girls are thought to be inspired by the Caryatids, the figures that act as columns for the Erechtheion temple on the Acropolis.
Nikos Rousseas, who has based his architecture business there for two decades, says the owners do not want any change of use or their homes flattened. Vangelis’ legal advisers, contacted by telephone, say he opposes demolition. Since being cleared of traffic, the area has become one of the most expensive in central Athens, say real estate agents, with two-bedroom apartments selling for roughly $800,000.
The removal of protection is dangerous, Manos, Greek parliament member, wrote July 11 to the newspaper Kathimerini.
“All these houses, which are tied to the past, create the right atmosphere for those walking up to the Acropolis,” Marina Kouremenos said. “I don’t know how it would look if in their place there was a huge restaurant with tables and umbrellas. It would be like Disneyland.”
The museum is years behind its completion date after a logjam of legal challenges about demolitions and digs.
Now due to open in 2008, the museum is expected to attract more than 3.6 million people a year, more than three times the number that visit the Acropolis, officials say. Designed by Athens architect Michael Photiadis and Swiss-born Bernard Tschumi, the centerpiece is the gallery where visitors can see the Acropolis some 900 feet above.
The museum “is there to show what is both within and outside it,” Tschumi said in a speech in Athens July 11. Greece’s tourism contributes about 17 percent to the country’s $265 billion economy and about one in five of its jobs, says the London-based World Travel and Tourism Council.
Meanwhile, sweltering in the hot day, Culture Minister George Voulgarakis helps artisans pack sculptures for the move to the museum. At the same time, passerby Stavros Theofanides stops at Rousseas’ office. “Are they really going to pull this down?” he asked.
He pointed to the black-glass and concrete museum. “They should be pulling down that outrage instead.”