Work on the creation of the National Museum of Marine Antiquities, which Piraeus will acquire, is continuing rapidly. As announced on Tuesday (02.01.2025) from , it will be ready to welcome its visitors in 2026. According to the announcement issued by the Ministry of Culture, the industrial building of Silos is organically connected to its southwestern side, the building under construction in order to ensure the necessary spaces to accommodate a pioneering and innovative Museum in Piraeus. CORVERSE More than 2,500 exhibits will be exhibited and a number of technological applications will be presented, having well equipped maintenance workshops and storage spaces. In parallel with the new building, the film road, which served the loading of the ships, is highlighted and shown. The National Museum of Marine Antiquities will highlight the treasures of the Greek seas, while at the same time it will be the emblematic cultural landmark for the country’s largest port. The work of the National Museum of Maritime Antiquities is funded with the sum of 93,000,000 euros from the resources of the Recovery Fund, managed by the Ministry of Culture. This is the largest cultural project in progress today. CORVERSE Culture Minister Lena Mendoni said: “A vision of decades now enters the final line for its implementation and completion. The evolution of our country, from history to our day, is directly linked to the sea, shipping, shipping. The main purpose of the creation of the National Museum of Enal Antiquities is, through the findings of our seas, to highlight the Greek culture in its long duration, its long historical and uninterrupted duration, in a space in which the Venetian antiquities will be exposed exclusively. These features we want to highlight at the National Museum of Adult Antiquities, almost unique in its kind: It is an iconic work of culture, in a landmark building for Piraeus, on the Ionian Coast. We rescue and highlight an important industrial building, SILOS, which we connect to a modern building. Thus, the necessary conditions are created for the creation of a model, innovative Museum. The unique wealth of the Greek seas acquires its ideal place of hospitality. The design of the exhibition space results from the commitments of geometry and structure of the existing shell, as well as its expansion. The structure and structure of the building defines an extensive exhibition, which in turn requires approaches that make it legible for visitors. It requires rest and break spaces, making it necessary to differentiate from space to space/thematic unity, so that the public can have the easier understanding of the succession of issues, constantly finding new points of interest. We use modern technological means and will deliver, in 2026, another important Museum fully accessible, offering its visitors a unique diving experience in the past, with time stations, submerged settlements, wrecks, shipforms, drawings and cargoes of merchant ships, maps and diagrams. It is clear that the operation of this Museum introduces Piraeus to international cultural destinations.” The time of construction of the National Museum of Enal Antiquities Construction of the Museum, started in December 2023, with first phase interventions at the Sitapoviki building, which operated, from November 1936 to late 2010. SILOS is highly damaged, both in its metal elements and in its optolines. With the addition of the new building, a single narrative is created, in which the required spaces are created, which support the museum study and exhibits, but at the same time constitute – and on their own – signs of a route, which “dives” in the past (Silo building), “revelops” on the surface (New building) and returns to the present, through the space identified with the recent industrial past of the building (wine road). The premises of the Museum, a total area of 26,380 sq.m., are distributed in exhibition areas for permanent and periodic exhibitions (7,550 sq.m.), in spaces for educational programs and scientific activities (mphithere, library, multimedia), maintenance workshops, service facilities for visitors (welcome, dressing room, shop, refreshment, restaurant, practice), administration offices. The main objective of the museum study is to ensure universal accessibility at both physical level (baths, elevators, spacious spaces of movement between exhibits), and intellectual level (graduation of information material, touch exhibits, information reading levels, etc.). The performance of the exhibition script is achieved – mainly – by using screens (mainly built-in or freely arranged in space), backgrounds and special structures, exhibition lighting, digital media and applications, supervisory – information material and marking in print and/or digital form. The 6 thematic axes of the new museum The processing and “maturation” of the museum study at the stage of its adaptation with the corresponding museography, dictated the modification of the 2021 study. In the final museum study – which has recently received the positive opinion of the Museum Council of the Ministry of Culture – the changes identified concern the exhibition material, which increases by approximately 300 findings, surpassing 2,500 exhibits, the structure of the exhibition narrative, which acquires new modules, re-evaluates and specializes, but also the final choice of the accompanying interpretive media, which vary and cover a wide range of options, conventional and digital interpretive means, directorial environments and models. The exhibition narrative is structured into six thematic axes: 1. Sea, Environment, Man, 2. Maritime Archaeology, 3. “Timecapsules” at the bottom…stations in time”, 4. Approaching the past. An open issue to be managed, 5. Maritime cultural heritage open to society, 6. Silo and Piraeus, interrelated stories. The course of the exhibition is predetermined and starts from the building of SILOS, where the theme axes 1 and 2 will be located. The theme axis 3, which is the most important and richest in axis findings, is located in the new building. Axis 4 is located at almost the same level as Axis 3. Thematic axis 5 is developed into two levels, which are linked to a scale. Thematic axis 6 is placed within the film road, where the visitor moves from the level +8.85m. of the new building. The visitor can browse the “internal” of the existing building, see points to which under normal circumstances he would not have access, and thus understand its operation. The structure of the cells of the barn is revealed to the visitor, while browsing the exhibition through a smooth ramp route, a continuous line that follows the sequence of the thematic modules of the museum study presented in both the existing and the part of the expansion.
Hellenic Ministry of Culture: The National Museum of Enal Antiquities in Piraeus
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in Greece