Charalampidou, D. (2015). Museum of Underwater Antiquities MOUA [Diploma Thesis, Technische Universität Wien]. reposiTUm. https://doi.org/10.34726/hss.2015.24471
The new Museum Of Underwater Antiquities, located on the Southeast side of the dock of Ietionia Coast in the historic port of Piraeus, is directly associated with the sea, travel, discovery, expeditions, research, knowledge and self-awareness. The museum is therefore emerging the human adventure and highlights historical memories and collective identities. The Silo building is a captivating monument of the Greek industrial heritage, which will continue to be a living cell of the town, directly adapted to the new functions of the port and the wider development objectives in the field of cultural tourism. This is the first museum in Greece, which is utterly dedicated to the residues of the material culture revealed mainly through the underwater archaeological fieldwork. The range and richness of the objects found, cover the timelessness of the Greek culture and make it a major archaeological museum both at National and International level. Additionally, the variety of exhibits document the historical exchanges in the Mediterranean sea, transforming the museum into an interdisciplinary center of Intercultural dialogue. The main objective of the project is to transform the Cereals Stock house building Complex into a Museum of Underwater Antiquities, an International attraction, which will meet the growing interest not only of the specialized scientific community, but also the general open-public. This is precisely the main challenge of re-designing and transforming into the new museum, while meeting the appropriate infrastructure in order to satisfy the scientific, educational and wider social role of the country. Moreover, it creates appropriate conditions for fully accessible facilities and infrastructure. In an era full of political transformations and social changes, the museum owes to correlate material culture with the intangible heritage,in order to reconcile the antiquities with technology, to connect past and present, to accompany the story in the experience and reconcile the past with the younger generations.