After more than a decade of development, the Vucedol Culture Museum by Radionica Arhitekture has opened its doors to the public, setting up shop at one of Europe’s most important archaeological sites.

Sitting next to the Vucedol archaeological site on the bank of the river Danube in eastern Croatia, the HRK179m (US$26.2m, €23.6m, £16.7m) museum is made up of a series of terraces that climb slowly to adapt to the topography.

The idea behind the 1,200sq m (13,000sq ft) museum’s design was integration into the terrain, which Radionica has achieved by having the facility mostly buried in the ground with only the façade open to the landscape. The museum design aims to blend in as best as possible to its surroundings, using brick for the outer coating as it most resembles the ground at the site. Passing through the museum, visitors are educated about Vucedol culture, before using the museum's serpentine green roof to access the archaeological plateau at the top of the site.

Completed in 2013 but only opened on 30 June, the museum development is part of the Croatian government's Ilok-Vukovar-Vucedol project, which features the renovation and development of several locations, including Odescalchi Castle, a Franciscan monastery, the Eltz Castle complex, Vukovar City Museum and parks in the historical centre of Ilok.

The wider Ilok-Vukovar-Vucedol project was financed with a loan from the Council of Europe Development Bank, with an additional state fund of HRK56.9m (US$8.3m, €7.5m, £5.3m) and HRK156.2m (US$22.9m, €20.6m, £14.6m) from Croatia’s Ministry of Culture.

Vucedol is one of the most significant archeological sites in Europe. Due to an extremely favourable strategic position, the area has always been open to colonisation. As such, Vucedol provides detailed insight into how civilisations and cultures developed at the time of the first Indo-European settlers at around 6000 BC, also giving researchers extensive knowledge into the settlers’ everyday lives and customs.

In addition to archaeological finds from the site, the museum features a reconstruction of the Vucedol settlement – to which the beginnings of the cultures of today's European nations are attributed. The Vucedol site also includes; the restored Villa Streim, which will serve as a research centre for the archaeologists and old crafts workshops for demonstrations of crafts from Vucedol culture.