An integrated strategic development plan that will mainly concern the Acropolis of Its Kale and everything it includes has been put in the works by the Ministry of Culture in collaboration with the Ephorate of Antiquities of Ioannina in recent months.
The promotion of the idea for the preparation of a second master plan after the one already implemented and which concerns the unification of the two Citadels of Its Calais and the Municipal Museum respectively where the Aslan Mosque is located, began to take shape and already the guidelines have been given by the ministry so that with the start of the study, the parameters will be specified which will go beyond the simple recording of the existing situation.
The Acropolis of Its Calais is treated in the context of the new master plan as one separate from the rest, but as a single set of reference monuments centered on the Byzantine Museum and the mosque.
At the same time, however, the richness of the other buildings located on the Acropolis, such as the Treasury, the gunpowder storehouse, the tower of Bohemundus, combined with the content of the collections that each of them includes, may be viewed from a different perspective if it is considered that the needs and conditions for the presentation of the same exhibits and collections have changed since their exhibition began until today.
The mapping of infrastructure projects
As was also the case with the preparation of the master plan for the unification of the two Acropolises and the accompanying projects concerning the museum collections, so also in the case of the new strategic development plan for the Acropolis of Its Calais, all proposals will be discussed, even and the most groundbreaking ones, so as to give the feeling, but above all to make a change a reality in the area which is also the most visited in the Castle City of Ioannina.
Another key parameter of the new effort of the Ministry of Culture services will be the analysis of data and parameters, such as the economic and technical data resulting from and for the visitation, the possibility of drawing new “routes” that will become more accessible and attractive to the visitor, as well as and a complete mapping of the existing situation with public utility networks (water supply, sewerage, electricity) in order to determine the new goals for their complete modernization.
Once these are completed, then the proposals will be submitted and also then, it will be decided – which seems the most logical – whether and in what way new museological and museographic studies should be prepared for the collections of the Byzantine Museum, the Treasury and the other monuments of buildings.
ALEXANDROS PAPADOPOULOS
