尼科西亚新塞浦路斯博物馆

Architect：Kalliope Kontozoglou

Location：Nicosia, Cyprus

Category：Exhibition Centres Museums

The New Cyprus Museum does not project a single image or meaning, but invites the visitor to solve the riddles posed by its antiquities. As a topos, it allows us to remember the whole Nicosia, the whole Cyprus. The museum frames and reveals the city topography: the gentle landscape with the river and the hendecagon, a symbol of the walls, nest within it in a newly created microcosm.

Visitors ascend a ramp from street level to a public terrace (+6.0m), in the pilotis supporting the permanent collections; here ongoing excavations are exhibited, the temporary exhibitions rooms(0.0m) can be viewed through gigantic lanterns, as well as the ‘arena’ (-4.0m), in the form of the  Venetian city walls– the hendecagon, the figure of a reunited city. This is an open forum, the stage for performances, debates, fairs, market stalls and a meeting place. 

The terrace connects to the north via ramping landscaped ‘fingers’ to the Municipal Gardens and descends through a copper-mine-like-garden to the river. The glyptotheque on the roof is another public space, a ‘Z’-shaped garden of local vegetation, durable artefacts and reconstructed archaeological contexts overlooking the historic centre of Nicosia.

Entry to the museum is through the giant ‘eye’ of the ‘Sphinx’- an enormous vertical space, lined by intaglio reliefs based upon the Neolithic clay figurines of fertility goddesses. Ticket office, escalators, lifts and stairs open directly off the lobby, which leads onto a broad concourse around the ‘arena’. Off this are accessed the information office and gift shops, in little archetypal ‘houses’, the cafe, and the temporary exhibitions illuminated by the conical lanterns. 

From the concourse, visitors ascend to the permanent galleries via escalators adjacent to the lobby. At each landing a spacious lounge over the foyer with computers, models or reconstructions, introduce the exhibition of each level. Then one enters the main space of three tiered terraces (+12.0m, +16.0m, +20.0m), connected by ramps, with display walls of artefacts and interpretation panels. They are chronologically arranged, from Early Neolithic to Roman, but permit revisions and thematic ‘tableaux’. The ascent continues outdoors in the glyptotheque of the roof and reaches the restaurant. 

To the north is Phase 2 (-4.0m):  Library, Institute of Antiquities, and Conference hall are organised in a ‘fan’ shape around the arena and are lit by the ‘cuts’ in the sloping landscape, their ceiling. 

Our museum is thus a sequence of narrative ‘landscapes’, weaving the city panorama, the exhibitions, and its public spaces together in a meaningful synthesis. The ‘Sphinx’ is intended to become the new landmark of Nicosia, an accessible, multidimensional museum as well as a social forum, that promotes dialogue and participation, beyond its primary function of preserving and presenting the priceless heritage of Cyprus.

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