To this day, there have been — with their little brushes! During construction it was very amusing to see the enormous cranes in one part of the site and, in another part, little folding tables, and sun umbrellas, and people down on their knees brushing the dirt away and discovering extraordinary mosaics.

The million-dollar question: Do you think that the Elgin Marbles will be returned now?

I’m convinced they will be. But this is for the politicians to decide. The fact of being able to reconstitute a story is so exciting, though. Imagine having a book where you have to read the one chapter here and aren’t able to see the other chapter because it’s somewhere else. It’s one single story and it doesn’t make sense to keep it separate. This happens a lot with ancient Greek sculpture: the head is in London, the shoulders are in Munich, the feet are in Paris, and what is left is in Athens.

I understand that part of the exhibition design is to leave open spaces for the returned frieze.

After coming up with many ideas, we decided to display the Greek blocks exactly where they should be, and we have created white plaster replicas for the blocks that are currently absent. We think the viewer should have an overview of what it really should look like all together. For a while, I thought we should present nothing, or display grainy black-and-white photographs. And then, for respect towards the visitor, we decided to add the replicas. But, you know, you can’t confuse the fake for the real.

The New Acropolis Museum opens on June 20. newacropolismuseum.org

"Modern Ruins" originally appeared in the Summer 2009 issue of Modern Painters. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Modern Painters' Summer 2009 Table of Contents.