Translating Tradition: The New Acropolis Museum by Bernard Tschumi Architects

Abstract

The study explores the conceptual approach to architectural design of the New Acropolis Museum in Athens, designed by Bernard Tschumi Architects. The main hypothesis of the study is that the team of architects led by Bernard Tschumi bases the architecture of the New Acropolis Museum on the concept of translation of several key elements of the traditional architecture of the Athenian Acropolis (the classical canon of architecture, the spatial arrangement of the Acropolis objects, and the idea of the Acropolis architecture as processual architecture) using the language of modern architecture. Furthermore, through the procedures of de- and recomposition, fragmentation, superimposition, juxtaposition, and, finally, montage of the elements of the Acropolis architecture, Tschumi departs from the classical language of architecture, building a type of postmodern and, further, performative architecture. This is not a question of a logocentric form of translation based on mimesis, a second-hand copy in which the “original” is lost, nor a form of transgressive act, but of translation as an enfolding process of transformation during the act of transportation. In the theoretical context, the study draws on the work of Mieke Bal, Walter Benjamin, Gilles Deleuze, and Charles Jencks.