| Athens montage | Music | 00:00 |
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| VATSIKOPOULOS: The Goddess Athena must be seeing red. In the last century, her city has been infected by a cancer of concrete. | 00:15 |
| Athens skyline | Post World War Two, cheap apartments dominate, standard issue during the late 1960s military dictatorship. The men of war were never into the arts. | 00:29 |
| Athens street/ subway | But the mortals of modern Athens have lifted their game since hosting the 2004 Olympics, and now even a metro train ride has become a journey through the city’s glorious past. | 00:44 |
| Modern railway station montage | Music | 00:59 |
| Sculptures/ archaeological site | VATSIKOPOULOS: It took 32 years and 50 archaeologists to build the museum-worthy Athens Metro. Digging through layers of the city, builders were often forced to down jackhammers in favour of the archaeologist’s brush. | 01:07 |
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| Music | 01:23 |
| Byzantine plumbing incorporated into Metro | VATSIKOPOULOS: Stressed out Athenians now step over Byzantine plumbing, past Grecian urns, wait on marble platforms, and drink their coffee in the company of 5th century ancestors. | 01:27 |
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| Music | 01:39 |
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| VATSIKOPOULOS: And, there’s not an advertising billboard in sight. | 01:45 |
| Statue of Athena | Athena, goddess of wisdom, would no doubt approve of nearly 3 billion dollars well spent. | 01:50 |
| Relics incorporated into Metro | Music | 01:56 |
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| PANDERMALIS: Every Athenian every morning he has a very difficult life economically. | 02:20 |
| Pandermalis. Super: | He has to earn, but every moment he can raise his eyes and look to the Acropolis | 02:07 |
| Acropolis | and nothing is so bad at the moment. | 02:14 |
| Friezes /Acropolis | Music | 02:18 |
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| VATSIKOPOULOS: And it’s been inspiring locals and foreigners alike, ever since this city’s Golden Age back in 5th century BC, when on this very hill democracy was born, the arts flourished, and the foundations were laid for Western civilisation. | 02:33 |
| Vox Pops | MAN: The Parthenon to us is part of our soul. | 02:58 |
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| WOMAN: Not just for us - for the whole world. I believe the Acropolis is the most important building in the whole world. | 03:01 |
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| MAN: It’s our history and our civilisation - our heritage and tradition. It’s the envy of the entire world. It’s our life, the air we breathe. | 03:13 |
| Restoration team at work | VATSIKOPOULOS: Experts have been restoring the monuments for the past 30 years. Undoing the damage of a previous restoration, of Venetian cannonballs, Ottoman dynamite and acid rain. It’s a work in progress. | 03:31 |
| New Acropolis Museum | Music | 03:48 |
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| VATSIKOPOULOS: But across the road is the city’s most important shrine since the Parthenon. The New Acropolis Museum, soon to open its doors, is the symbol of this new classical revival. | 03:56 |
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| The Bernard Tschumi design makes modern references to its ancient neighbour like metal columns and an abundance of glass -- bathing the 4,000 exhibits in natural light –just as the ancients intended them to be seen. PANDERMALIS: We wanted to have a | 04:10 |
| Pandermalis and Vatsikopoulos in museum | visual link with the Parthenon itself on the top of the Acropolis. | 04:33 |
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| VATSIKOPOULOS: Professor Dimitrios Pandermalis is the force behind the construction. PANDERMALIS: These are houses, baths, workshops, streets. So really everyday life. | 04:40 |
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| This is the result of a very intensive collaboration between architect and archaeologist. We spent a winter deciding | 04:51 |
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| the right position of the pylons of which the museum was constructed in the excavation, without any damage of the excavation. | 05:04 |
| Museum interior. Parthenon friezes | VATSIKOPOULOS: Last October, for the first time in two and a half thousand years, the surviving Parthenon frieze and sculptures were moved from the Acropolis to the new Museum’s top floor. But something is still missing. | 05:15 |
| Across Athens skyline to Acropolis | Music | 05:32 |
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| VATSIKOPOULOS: In 1801, twenty years before independence, the British Ambassador | 05:37 |
| Drawing Lord Elgin | to the Ottoman Empire, Lord Elgin, convinced the occupiers to allow | 05:42 |
| Acropolis restoration | his men to saw off half of the surviving frieze and marbles from the Parthenon. This was to be priceless plasterwork for his new dream home. | 05:47 |
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| Music | 05:59 |
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| VATSIKOPOULOS: Call it hubris or divine intervention, but Lord Elgin | 06:03 |
| Drawing Lord Elgin | fell on hard times and was forced to sell to the British Museum. | 06:07 |
| New Acropolis Museum | Music | 06:12 |
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| VATSIKOPOULOS: Now that the New Acropolis Museum is nearly finished, all that remains the return of Elgin’s souvenirs. | 06:16 |
| Parthenon friezes | Music | 06:25 |
| Vatsikopoulos and Pandermalis in museum | VATSIKOPOULOS: On the top is the glass Parthenon Gallery, with the exact dimensions of its namesake, now parallel and clearly in view. The Athens originals will sit side by side with white plaster copies of those Elgin sold to the British Museum. | 06:59 |
| Sculptures in museum. Super: | PANDERMALIS: You see the first figure is white, so that means this figure is in London, the other two figures in Athens. Next figure in Athens, | 06:55 |
| Vatsikopoulos and Pandermalis in museum | the other figure half in Athens, half in London. The head of the Athena in Athens, the breast of the Athena in London. | 07:07 |
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| VATSIKOPOULOS: Do you hold out hope that they will actually loan them to you or return them? PANDERMALIS: I hope so. This is the position of the museum, and we’ll see. | 07:16 |
| England montage | Music | 07:31 |
| Inside British Museum | VATSIKOPOULOS: And these are the marbles plundered by the diplomat-come-vandal, Lord Elgin . For many years, the British Museum claimed the Greeks were incapable of looking after them, had nowhere to put them. Now Greece has upped the ante with its $220 million dollar state of the art museum. So will the British now hand over the sculptures? | 07:40 |
| Burnett. Super: | BURNETT: Um well, I don’t think so. I mean obviously it’s terrific that the new museum has been built and has such good facilities, but I mean as I think you probably know, we believe strongly the Marbles belong here, properly acquired originally, and are an integral part of the collection today. | 08:05 |
| Marbles in British Museum | VATSIKOPOULOS: And that is anathema to the Greeks. | 08:21 |
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| KORKA: The final goal is reunification, so it’s not a matter of | 08:25 |
| Korka. Super: | restitution or return or anything else. VATSIKOPOULOS: But that doesn’t mean reunification in London, does it? It means reunification here in Athens. KORKA: Well of course, because this is where the monument is. So it’s evident that reunification can only take place next to the monument from where these cultures came, and to which they belong. | 08:31 |
| Burnett | VATSIKOPOULOS: And you don’t think that the marbles will ever, ever return to Athens? BURNETT: I think it’s very unlikely. | 08:58 |
| Friezes in British Museum | I mean obviously I’d love it and the trustees would love it if we could find a way of resolving this controversy, because it doesn’t actually help anybody. And it could impede – it, doesn’t impede, but it could impede -- | 09:05 |
| Burnett | good cultural relations between the two countries and museums. So it’d be much better if we could find a way of resolving it. | 09:18 |
| Marbles in British Museum | VATSIKOPOULOS: Under British law, the Elgin marbles belong to the British Museum Trustees. According to the Greek Constitution, they belong to the Greek state, and nothing has changed. | 09:25 |
| Sunset/ Sea/ Cruise liner | Music | 09:40 |
| easyCruise liner | VATSIKOPOULOS: Enter a Greek-born British knight in shining armour. Sir Stelios Haji-Ioannou of Easy Cruise. Scion of a Greek-Cypriot shipping family, he’s a tycoon who now wants to reunify the Parthenon Marbles. | 09:50 |
| Haji-Ioannou. Super: | HAJI-IOANNOU: I don’t have any delusions of grandeur that I’m going to solve it, but I think I have a realistic chance of being an honest broker between the two sides. | 10:08 |
| Passengers on deck | Music | 10:17 |
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| VATSIKOPOULOS: He’s taken his campaign to the British media, and as his patrons cruise the Greek Islands, they’re absorbing some subtle propaganda between the sun and fun. | 10:24 |
| Vox Pops with passengers | CANADIAN GIRL: This is the first we’ve really heard much detail about it. | 10:36 |
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| BELFAST MAN: The thing was, they weren’t rightfully taken at the time. I don’t believe they were. | 10:41 |
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| CANADIAN GIRL: Well it makes more sense to have them together. | 10:45 |
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| BELFAST WOMAN: Originally, I had thought they were going to be destroyed here before they were brought to Britain, but I’ve since learned that they weren’t, so I think there is a case for them to come back then. | 10:49 |
| Haji-Ioannou. Super: | HAJI-IOANNOU: So, you know, if more British people understand the Greek case, that’s good. And you know what? At the end of the day if I can be selfish as well, if more people understand the Greek Marbles, the Parthenon marbles, are now reunited in Athens, and it’s a good way of seeing them to get on an easyJet flight and then on an easyCruise to see them, you know, I won’t be disappointed. | 11:03 |
| Marbles | Music | 11:24 |
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| VATSIKOPOULOS: In the meantime, he’s trying to convince both sides to ignore the legal issues and authorise the two museum heads to start talking – about a cultural exchange, a loan, a swap -- the marbles for other rare works of antiquity. | 11:29 |
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| For the British, it’s a cautionary reminder to beware Greeks bearing gifts. BURNETT: Look, the difficulty with a loan is, if you’re borrowing something you have to accept the title, | 11:50 |
| Burnett. Super: | you know, and previous Greek Governments have gone on record as saying they will never accept the title of the British Museum and that’s the problem for the Trustees of the British Museum. They couldn’t in law lend something if they thought it would never be returned. VATSIKOPOULOS: It’s a classic stalemate. | 12:02 |
| Classical Athens buildings | The Greek Culture Ministry has worked hard to prove that it now protects its antiquities. But insists that it will judge which monuments are worthy of preservation. But who judges the judges? | 12:20 |
| Culture Ministry building | For the past few months, the spotlight has been on the Culture Ministry for all the wrong reasons. The minister has been embroiled in a corruption scandal. Then questions began to be asked about the de-listing of many protected cultural sites under his watch. | 12:39 |
| Art deco buildings | Like the controversial delisting of these two buildings. | 12:59 |
| Man plays cello in pedestrian boulevard | At the foot of the Acropolis is a pedestrian boulevard -- a walkway between the ancient monuments and the new museum. But in between are two apartment blocks -- one is a rare example of 1930s art deco, the other, late 1800s neo-classical. The Culture Ministry and New Acropolis Museum think they spoil the view and want them moved. | 13:09 |
| Pandermalis and Vatsikopoulos view art deco buildings from museum | PANDERMALIS: Is that art? Is what you see architecture? I don’t know. The roof on the art deco place. What’s that about? That structure between the two buildings is illegal. VATSIKOPOULOS: Would it be better if they pulled it down? PANDERMALIS: I don’t care. | 13:40 |
| Art deco buildings | Music | 14:03 |
| Marina on balcony/ Building interior | VATSIKOPOULOS: This building is Marina Kouremenou’s home. She was born here, in the city’s best surviving example of art deco, built by her grandfather, a leading architect. | 14:07 |
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| Music | 14:19 |
| Marina on balcony | VATSIKOPOULOS: It was protected by two heritage listings, until the now disgraced secretary-general of the Culture Ministry stacked a delisting vote. | 14:26 |
| Marina. Super: | KOUREMENOU: The law says that you can only delist a listed building if it harms a monument of cultural and historic value. Which one is the monument? The museum is not a monument | 14:37 |
| Pandermalis | PANDERMALIS: I believe personally that everything can change in this world. We can rethink decisions. VATSIKOPOULOS: Is this more valuable than those? PANDERMALIS: Of course it is, of course it is. | 14:54 |
| Athens skyline/ Sepia Photos | Music | 15:08 |
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| SIMEON: Athens was a beautiful neoclassical city and it had a great unity about it. | 15:19 |
| Vatsikopoulos and Simeon look at photos | VATSIKOPOULOS: In retirement, architect, Andreas Simeon, is fighting alongside Greece's heritage protection society to preserve what’s left of 19th and early 20th century Athens. | 15:40 |
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| Music | 15:53 |
| Simeon. Super: | SIMEON: You see in Athens, conservation came rather late, the consciousness about conservation, and conservation efforts came too late. So we have been able to conserve, to protect, some isolated buildings. But we don’t have many architectural wholes. If you take these two buildings out it’s like taking two teeth out of a beautiful mouth; there will be a void, a hole, left there. | 15:58 |
| Archaeological dig next to café | VATSIKOPOULOS: In Athens, you can have lunch in a café one day, only to find it turned into an archaeological dig the next. Such is the power of the Ministry of Culture. | 16:33 |
| Simeon | SIMEON: You know, this reminds me of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, in which all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. I’m saying that because a 19th century building may be just as important as a Roman building. They both make part of our architectural heritage. | 16:47 |
| Buildings | Music | 17:14 |
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| VATSIKOPOULOS: But if the courts decide that art deco and neo-classicism are to be sacrificed on the altar of antiquity, those seeking the return of Elgin’s booty from London, may well be undermining their cause. | 17:22 |
| Marina’s apartment | KOUREMENOU: We had two or three cases of people who participated in campaigns for returning the Elgin Marbles, and they | 17:38 |
| Marina. Super: | said that you must realise that this weakens your case, because if you demolish something of such value you show that you do not have a respect for culture, so why do you want the marbles back? | 17:46 |
| Marbles | Music | 17:58 |
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| VATSIKOPOULOS: Elgin’s legacy is more than just dismembered sculptures. There’s Elginism – | 18:06 |
| Drawing Elgin/ Marbles in London/Acropolis | a word meaning an act of cultural vandalism. By targeting the more recent buildings, the mortals of Athens may, ironically, commit one or two acts of Elginism themselves, something sure to displease the Goddess Athena, protector of ALL of Athens. | 18:11 |
| Acropolis by night | Music | 18:33 |
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| Reporter: Helen Vatsikopoulos Camera: David Martin Editor: Garth Thomas Producer: Vivien Altman Research: Eleni Bertes | 18:41 |