Greece launches design competition for new Acropolis museum

ATHENS (Reuters) -- Greece Thursday relaunched an international contest to choose the design of a new Acropolis museum, meant as a home for the Elgin Marbles it has fought to get back from Britain for years.

"We mean to have the museum in 2004 and we will fight tooth and nail to be true to our decision," Culture Minister Theodoros Pangalos told a news conference.

The long-delayed museum at the foot of the Acropolis will house art treasures now crammed into outdated rooms on top of the hill. But the facility is intended mainly to showcase the Elgin Marbles should they be returned to Greece.

The museum was meant to be ready by 2000, long before the Athens 2004 Olympics, but a design by two Italian architects who won a similar contest 11 years ago caused an uproar.

Local residents went to court to stop the project. Critics said the design was too modern and too massive for the site and archeologists demanded time to excavate the antiquities-rich area.

Last year the plan was canceled after ruins dating from the fourth century A.D. were unearthed on the site.

Pangalos said the contest for new designs, which must take account of the unearthed ruins, will be announced in the Greek and international press in the next few days. Pre-selection is expected to finish by November 15 and the second stage of handing out specifications will follow two weeks later.

He gave no further details. The previous contest had a budget of about $140 million and asked participants to try to connect the marbles with the Parthenon temple.

British officials have so far refused to give the sculptures back, saying the British Museum has kept them safe from the pollution that has damaged other parts of the Acropolis, and have said they will not consider doing so as long as Greece has no proper place to put them.

Lord Elgin took the massive marble friezes and sculptures from the Parthenon 200 years ago and later sold them to the British Museum.

Greece views the removal as a robbery of its cultural heritage, saying it left one of the world's most stunning monuments crippled, and demands their return.

British officials have so far refused to give the sculptures back, saying the British Museum has kept them safe from the pollution that has damaged other parts of the Acropolis, and have said they will not consider doing so as long as Greece has no proper place to put them.

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