Museums are buildings of particular significance due to their function and their status. At the same time they are buildings in which the principles of energy conservation are rarely applied, sometimes without reason. It has been decided by the Hellenic Ministry of Culture to convert a medieval tower. built in the year 1344 as a fortress with 0.8-1.5 m thick walls and almost no windows, into a museum. The present paper discusses the difficulties that arise in the attempt to balance between the indoor climate conditions necessary to protect the exhibits and to provide comfortable conditions to the visitors, whilst respecting the aesthetics and the historical significance of the building. Furthermore. one needs to consider the difficult but necessary task of assessing factors such as the building's shell's thermal conductivity and capacity, the ventilation necessary as well as the indoor air movement, in order to determine the cooling loads. Finally, the challenge lies in designing and dimensioning an effective and efficient HVAC system, which should be as discrete as possible. The present paper aims to present the results of the study, to discuss the expected energy behaviour of the building and to comment on the options for introducing energy conservation techniques. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.