The restoration of the Propylaea of the Acropolis of Athens between theory and practice: the restoration
project of the northwest corner and the west façade
The restoration project of the northwest corner and the west façade of the Propylaea, Mnesicles’ monumental
gateway to the Athenian Acropolis, was the last of the interventions carried out on this monument under
the scientific supervision of the Committee for the Conservation of the Acropolis Monuments (ESMA),
completed at the end of 2015. The intervention included two parts, the first concerned the solution of
the structural problem to the capital and the blocks of the entablature of the northwest corner and the
second the anastelosis of the colonnade of the west façade. The project had to deal with the principles
that constitute the guidelines of modern interventions on the monuments of the Acropolis such as the
“minimal intervention”, the “reversibility”, the mechanical and chemical-physical “compatibility” with the
pre-existing classical structures, the conservation of “authenticity”.
After the completion of the intervention, the building has benefited not only from the static-structural
stability of the northwest corner but also from the aesthetic-formal one through the critical-revealing
action of the anastelosis of the doric colonnade, aimed at a better understanding of its architectural lines.