CIPA 2003 XIX th International Symposium, 30 September - 04 October, 2003, Antalya, Turkey 
Figure 4. Views of proposed first room: lower level (LEFT), upper level with 3D restoration views of the Acropolis (RIGHT) 
4.1 The Present Situation at the Museum 
The organization of the exhibition will be finished soon and the 
Museum will begin operations soon after. The study for the 
museum so far has been based on the existing exhibits, 
something very common for most museums of Greece. The 
study is focused on those parts of the archaeological site where 
most of the finds were found and ignores locations with less 
exhibits and the finds that are displayed in other museums. 
In brief, the arrangement of the rooms of the museum is 
mentioned (Figure 7): At the entrance hall there is an exhibition 
with texts and photographs from excavations and the excavators 
and a model of the Acropolis. At the first room there are 
exhibits from houses inside and outside the Acropolis. At the 
second room there are exhibits from the cemeteries. The most 
important part, the Grave circle A, is missing, since the finds 
from that part are kept at the National Archaeological Museum 
in Athens. At the third room there are exhibits from periods 
later than the Mycenean era and some groups of the finds 
according to their use or their role in everyday life or in 
religious ceremonies. 
4.2 The Proposal for a new intervention at the Museum’s 
arrangement 
The proposed arrangement of the museum inquires the 
possibility of breaking the ‘real’ space into different spatial 
subunits, which will be related to its function (exhibits, public, 
information, other uses). A scenario is created about the type 
and level of multiple walk paths inside the museum. In order to 
solve the problem of the limited available space, a good use of 
its height is proposed: the visitor is smoothly led towards a 
suspended rising corridor, where the information either is 
provided by digital means or is mixed with the exhibits, thus 
creating space and virtual images which provide all necessary 
information for the better understanding of the site and its 
history. 
Within the existing space, the construction of an additional grid 
is proposed which operates independently. So the natural level 
with all the exhibits and the database of the museum with the 
digital technology tools and the virtual images produced by 
them acts separately. The basic elements of the new 
arrangement of the museum space are: • 
• The display of the finds is no longer based on their numbers 
but on the excavation period. So the visiting 
routes are similar to the paths the excavators followed. 
Where this is possible, the walking path follows the ancient 
route, resulting in a more direct approach. 
• The existing exhibition, as an array of display cases along 
the perimeter of the room, remains as such 
• The suspended rising corridors act as transitional staircases 
between the building and the pieces of work and they 
organize the space by defining new relationships and tour 
paths. This is achieved by projecting on the surface of the 
corridors images of the finds. 
• It is proposed that the constructions are made by a material 
which fits well without absorbing light from the exhibits 
• The various levels operate based on long distances and 
optical axes 
• The whole concept creates flexible spaces, able to accept 
new exhibits that will be found in the future. 
An application that can combine all existing and virtual 
information is shown in Figure 8 and transforms the rooms as 
following: 
• The entrance of the museum at first level brings the visitor 
to the natural space surrounding the Acropolis, through 
some open areas, while it prepares him/her for the further 
walk path along the suspended rising corridors and the 
screens for video projections, where 3D models of the 
fortifications are projected 
• The pass to the first room offers the choice of either 
selecting to visit the conventional exhibition (lower level) 
or the “new space” (upper level). The second choice leads 
the visitor to a path where screens present perspectively 3D 
representations of the site and, through the openings he/she 
can observe exhibits displayed in cases (Figure 4). At the 
end of this route, the visitor will be at the same lower level 
that he/she was at the beginning and can go on to the second 
room, where 
• the space created is structurally composed of transverse ribs 
which embody cabling for data transmission, an LCD 
screen for viewing finds through laser scanner, not found in 
situ due to the fact they are exhibited in other museums. 
The whole system will have different purposes depending 
on how one wants to converse, actively communicate or 
passively watch. With a route similar to the one in the first 
hall, the visitor finds himself watching representations of 
arched and vaulted graves 
• At the third room the visitor can watch, in a specially 
structured space, through an SIS, the excavation phases of