It’s been almost two weeks since that night Ministry of Culture announced new leadership of the big five museums countries and in institutions now transformed into legal entities of public law, there is a new type of mobility. Their boards of directors are being formed in the body, their first contacts are being made with the various bodies concerned (while the unions of the employees of the Ministry of Health and Welfare continue their mobilization against the relevant law) and in the midst of all this, their newly appointed presidents explain “K” their shared priorities.

” National Archaeological Museum should acquire an image commensurate with the grandeur of its content,” says its president, emeritus professor of architecture. Dimitris Oikonomou, which aims to increase the radiation and exposure of the institution “not only in Greece, but also internationally”. Considering that the attendance of the Acropolis Museum is much higher than that of EAM, the latter, according to Mr. Oikonomou, has many prospects. The problem is with future expansions and upgrades planned by architect David Chipperfield, but even the existing building is doing better, he notes. According to him, the museum’s current data can be used with the flexibility and speed of decision-making (in the context of archaeological law) that the new legal regime offers.

The next priority is just the fastest possible progress of the EAM expansion project. “We need to get relevant studies quickly,” says Economou, although he is also interested in the urban aspect of the project. “With the creation of the Acropolis Museum,” he explains, “the Makrigianni area has been modernized, but without planning to accommodate this dynamic. We also had side effects such as possible over-expanding of focus. In the new National Archaeological Museum, we want to check in advance for any negative consequences of its modernization. We don’t want real estate prices to go up enough to change the social classes that live in the area today.”

For an architecture professor Giorgos Panetsoschairman of its board of directors Byzantine and Christian Museum of Athensimportant is the fact that the institution embraces a period and a tradition – the Byzantine one – that touches our day. Mr. Panetsos is interested in tracing the architecture of the period with a focus on modern church building (and its hesitation between tradition and modernization), an area that has not borne fruit at a time when churches remain the most recognizable to the public. building.

Research activities

“We don’t want real estate prices to go up enough to change the social classes that live in the area today,” D. Oikonomou says of the EAM expansion.

“I am also interested in the connection of art with the concepts of Byzantine thought, such as love, forgiveness, philanthropy, settlement, God’s wisdom,” says Mr. Panetsos, adding to his list of priorities the production of a cultural product from the museum. , stimulating its research activities through existing staff and not only, its collaboration with other museums, etc. With regard to the latter, the “island” of Athenian museums, including Byzantine ones (Pinakotheka, Cyclades, Goulandris, Benaki), also offers opportunities, and regarding his transformation to NPDD and “diversity” in his management, he says: “We need freedom, creativity. Reduce – obviously on the basis of principles – exclusion in our “groups”, scientific, social or otherwise. Prohibitions are bad and very outdated.”

Dropping accusations of privatizing museums or high remuneration of their – unpaid – administration, clarifying that they remain under the control of the Central Archaeological Council and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is one of the priorities of the former rector of the Technical University of Crete Joachim Grispolakis and its president Archaeological Museum of Heraklion.

extraversion

In addition, myself says “K” that he contacted the management of the Organization for the Management and Development of Cultural Resources to clarify exactly how the revenues of the Heraklion Archaeological Museum would now by law go to its funds, and not entirely to the organization. Mr. Grispolakis’s goal is also the extraversion of the institution, “and collaboration with other museums, mainly abroad, so that the Minoan civilization becomes more widely known, obviously through exchanges, etc.,” he notes. “Besides,” he adds, “my goal is to use museum spaces. There is a large atrium that we could use for occasional exhibitions and new art.”

Finally, a former assistant professor of architecture at the Aristotelian University, Niki Manu-AndreadisThe president Archaeological Museum of Thessalonikiconsiders this position to be an honorary one. “We will try,” he notes, “to broaden the horizons of this already excellent museum – through new initiatives such as cooperation with other museums abroad, organizing important exhibitions and conferences – but, above all, to make it more open to a wider circle of people.” public of Thessaloniki. One of our priorities, which will be discussed at the Board of Directors, is to modernize the building, inside and out, as well as the surrounding area, in order to highlight this emblematic museum of the city, designed sixty years ago by Patroklos Karathinos. “.