Archaeological Museum of Piraeus | Fabrizio Felici

The project on such a delicate environment such as the one of the Pireo, requires a great attention to historic themes, on the problems of connection and its central focusing.
The aim is to individualize, in this sector of the harbour area, an access door to a universe of meanings and to a cultural memory, even before a touristic and commercial one may be imposed by a reasoning on time and on how it reflects on architecture.
The fastness with which contemporary times imposes itself on mankind gives back to man the great duty of showing the way towards future.
The answer to a such a project is to be found on the Foundations of the Mediterranean Culture and the essence of the harbour itself, one of the most important ports of the Mediterranean Sea as well as a neuralgic point among the municipalities of Keratsini, Drapetsona and Pireo.
The choice is then that of finding a project solution able to guarantee the objectives proposed by the Masterplan defined by the Administration and the planned procedures which will make of this area a real and proper museum city, an area with new boundaries, designed by the footsteps of history and culture.
The project is based on the conversion of a pre-existing building used for offices (9745 m2), in which it is decided to insert a new archeological thematic museum, in a route from the bottom to the top. Around its volume, there enfolds a new body with a clear sculptured monumental system, strongly linked to local stones, an evident element of continuity between past and present.
The low and slender volume, with glass planes around the connection with the ground, is counterbalanced by the opening, like an emptying, of the first level of the former old building, which would so become an ample panoramic terrace, able to connect all the neighbouring, rendering its centrality to the museum which identifies it as the pivot element of the urban system.
The museum route gets so enriched of ample public spaces, both internal and external, and of a series of functions able to improve and enrich its viewing experience . The ground floor, beyond the start of the showing route, harbours complementary spaces planned for restoration, research and reading, while the mezzanine floor, obtained thanks to its great height inter floors, contains further administrative offices, stores and the continuation of the exposition route.
The main element of the project seems to be the screen, hypothesized on the east side, a thin but imposing layer which, with its 22 m, stands as the underlying archeological caveat, answering to the need to protect it from the complexity and the heterogeneity of this contest. A clear shield, well defined, in neat contrast between lightness and heaviness, to which one may enter to be able to enjoy a privileged and highly evocative sight view on the past, on culture, on the harbour and on the sea.
It is a simply complex idea which, allowing to ideally rotate the front of the pre-existing building, transforms its implant, giving to the wall the function of a new front façade and a suggestive scenery of the archeological park.
The area is further completed by an ample covered car park (5773 m2 – 173 car lots, 2 coaches, 13 motorcycles) and a tailed area which goes beyond the courtyard of the museum with the intent of enclosing the planned pedestrian area to the east of Kanari Street to the area of the future Museum of the Submerged Civilizations to the south.
On the car park there is a planned large square (5773 m2) with a system of stairs which enables an out-and-out continuation of the museum route towards the outward.
The area is conceived as multifunctional, open and able to host various activities as laboratories, workshops, concerts, installations of great dimensions, which would be impossible to carry out within the structure.
Projects indicative budget
The considerations relating to the costs of the project take into account both the more general criteria and some comparisons with similar projects, built in Greece in a temporal span to supply an efficient sample and a reliable gauge of so complex economic dynamics.
It has been possible to estimate the following costs from an analysis of the project and from an attentive comparison: