Woke up to another gorgeous day- perfect Acropolis weather, cool and sunny. Surprisingly, it's a very short hike to the top, for all the talk about the importance of the processional route. I was kind of expecting an epic journey. The Acropolis was good; it's really a huge construction site, with a multi-decade restoration in progress. It's not really a "Look out for the wrath of the gods!" experience, so much as a "Look out, here comes that guy with the bobcat again!" situation. I have lost count of the major monuments I've visited shrouded in scaffolding- so it's really no big deal. I can't tell how extensive this restoration is- it looks like they're inserting placeholder stones, so I don't know whether they're just rebuilding key spots, or rebuilding major sections? The Parthenon, more than anything else, is in ruins because the in the 1600s it was occupied by the Ottoman Turks, who used it for munitions storage. It was hit by a bomb from below and the munitions exploded, causing the major damage we see today. There's a big historical lesson embedded in here somewhere....
More impressive than the Parthenon to me, though, is the Erectheion. There is something so graceful about the way it negotiates the change in grade and changes each face to accommodate a different function. I love the famous caryatid porch, although all the original caryatids are down the hill in the museum. It's tiny, compared to the Parthenon, but really lovely. The temple of Athena Nike is completelyenclosed in construction, so I didn't see that. The Propylaea was pretty cool- as intended, I was so dazed winding up the stairs and seeing the full framed view of the Parthenon that I kind of missed it, and had to go back in and look for the transition points, and the way it re-orients you and captures the view after climbing the hill.. Spent a couple of hours up there and came down to re-group and find food- fiercely hungry. I needed to re-energize before tackling the museum.
I also needed to come down and adjust my attitude, as I was by this point irritated with people at major world monuments on cell phones, and general crowd behavior. "People," as Seinfeld says. "They're the worst." I've somehow managed to stay out of sync here; show up at Hadrian's Library and the Ancient Agora, only to be turned away because they close at 2:30. (Why?? Why 2:30??) No problem- hike to the temple of Olympic Zeuss- sorry, we closed at 3. Meanwhile, I was also working up to a pretty good architecture rant, some of which I'll re-create here, as it relates to the view in all directions for miles and miles from the Acropolis. Athens, apart from the ancient monuments and the really lovely pedestrian Plaka at its feet, is egregiously unlovely. My friend Jessica R, correct in this as in all other things, had told me that a day in Athens itself would be plenty. To be sure, some of the wonders of the ancient world are here- the Acropolis alone was reason enough to make this a non-negotiable stop. But outside the historic district- offensively bad 60's brutalism, concrete buildings ringed in shabby motel-style porches and walkways, or struggling to support crumbling faux-Corb bris-soleils. From the Acropolis to the Port of Piraeus, which I've traversed twice, is about a 10 mile avenue lined with strip clubs and car dealerships, interspersed with mottled concrete messes of multi-story something-or-other. To further put it in perspective, the fabric out past the old city is more or less on an architectural par with Jakarta. At first I registered all this as anger, but I realized today it's more architectural despair- because if ATHENS, birthplace of so much in terms of democracy and philosophy and culture that we hold dear, can let this happen, then what does that mean for the rest of us? If the primary avenue from the ancient Acropolis to your major maritime port of entry into the city, for crying out loud, has deteriorated into a XXX version of Raleigh's Capital Boulevard, what hope does, say, Cary have? or my beloved Raleigh, or really, Anytown, USA? Where were the designers when this happened, or the historians and preservationists, or even the neighbors? NOBODY looked at this atrocious concrete mess at the foot of the Acropolis and said, "We can do better?" This is all so depressing.
Rant complete, and it's not entirely a fair one, for sure, but this was my frame of mind as I grumbled off from all the closed monuments and approached the New Acropolis Museum. At which point my attitude underwent a radical reversal.
The Museum. It looks modern from the outside- and yet, not jarringly so. You come down a set of stairs from the street, only to look down and discover you're standing on glass floor panels. This whole museum is built atop ancient archeological digs, and built so you can peer down into them and watch people work. Parts of the excavations, sheltered by a large overhang, are wide open. The digs are about 20' below you, so it's a tiny bit dizzying- but the glass is printed with small black dots, for traction and visual orientation.
Upward into the museum- you pass through a ticket gate and onto a gentle, wide, sloping pathway, like the climb to the Acropolis itself. More archeological sites underfoot. As you climb you see a giant pediment come into focus on the floor above, orienting you to the hall of statues. Halls of statues, actually, usually make my eyes glaze over pretty quickly- other then a few standout masterpieces, I have a hard time breathing much life into them. These are really elegantly displayed, though. Many of them are fragments, so they're sometimes pieced together with plaster inserts, or held in proper alignment, with the negative space left to your imagination, with stainless steel supports. A fragment of a capital, for example, is displayed on a fan of stainless steel bars- implying, but not replicating, the missing fluted column on which it sat.
More loveliness- the east and west sides of the gallery are shaded with a gentle screen. The statues are deliberately displayed in daylight, as intended by their creators. The screen, though, cuts down on the glare, and- even better- abstracts the decidedly unlovely fabric of contemporary Athens into a dynamic silhouette. In this light, even the rows of satellilte dishes and bris-soleils look like a united, coherent urban fabric; a modern chapter of this continual city.
Top floor: flawless. You step off the escalator onto the Parthenon level, where freizes and sculptures are displayed around the perimeter. It is so subtle at first that it takes a minute to register- these sculptures are in their exact positions around the gallery, which itself abstracts the marble columns in slender stainless steel, but maintains the proportions of the Parthenon perfectly. As you walk around the gallery, you get frequent glimpses of the actual Parthenon, just out the window and about 200 yards uphill. You also realize that, at some point since your entry, the museum has made a subtle transition to align itself perfectly with the orientation of the original, so you can compare each piece visually with its location on the hill. Then, my favorite detail- you step out into the center of the top floor gallery, onto more glass panels. Here you look straight down, through the strolling visitors on the lower two floors, and back down into the archaeological digs, 80' or so below. Simple but unmistakeable metaphor: looking from your current spot, back through layers and layers of history. Nice? Very nice. Hope renewed. Faith restored.
Note to the British Museum: Athens wants its marbles back - and their place is much nicer than yours. Lord Elgin was wrong. Cough 'em up. It's time.
No comments:
Post a Comment