As part of the UNESCO-listed Museums of Iceland, The Pergamon Museum is one of Berlin’s “must see” attractions. But it’s not so easy to see: it is completely closed for renovation from October 2023, and many parts will remain closed for 14 to 20 years – from 2037 to 2043.
However, some of the museum’s highlights will be welcoming visitors for a decade before the rest of the building’s renovation is completed.
The museum’s northern wing and the impressive Pergamon Altar Hall, which houses the entrance to the famous ancient Greek temple for which the museum is named, are scheduled to reopen in early 2027. The hall has been inaccessible since 2014.
A preview event for the press on 4 December provided information about the museum’s monumental restoration project.
“This is a treasure trove of humanity,” said Wolfram Weimer, the federal government’s commissioner for culture and media, at the presentation. “It will be a sensation. We are not expecting hundreds of thousands of visitors here over the coming years; we are expecting millions, because it has been designed as a place of global importance.”
preserving old structures
The Pergamon Museum was commissioned by German Emperor Wilhelm II and built from 1910 to 1930 according to plans by Alfred Messel. The museum’s renovations and additions follow many of the architect’s original designs.
The museum is a protected national heritage site, and the renovation preserves its main architectural features and original construction techniques as well as various elements such as windows.
A few years after the Pergamon Museum opened in 1930, it was severely damaged by air raids and artillery fire during World War II.
After the war, East Germany – where the museum was located – did not have the funds necessary to properly refurbish the building.
The current restoration process will preserve some traces of war damage as evidence of the city’s history, while parts that have naturally deteriorated over time are being repaired.
Lighting, climate control and security standards are being modernized to better preserve the millennium-old exhibits, and the entire museum is being made accessible to persons with disabilities.
Shaky Foundation, Unexpected Costs
The museum needed significant reinforcement due to its location next to the River Spree on unstable, sandy ground. The foundation was reinforced with more than 700 high-strength steel bars known as micropiles.
This posed an unexpected engineering challenge: while drilling 10 to 30 meters (30 to 100 ft) into the earth to install the micropiles, two pumping stations were discovered across from the initial construction site. Built to drain groundwater, they were never fully dismantled, and the remains were covered up without being documented, adding an unplanned step (and cost) to the restoration process.
The budget for this first phase of renovation has reached approximately €500 million ($580 million) – double the initial estimate. The entire restoration project is planned to cost approximately €1.5 billion.
Top attractions to (re)discover in 2027
So which treasure will once again be available to the public in 2027?
The monumental Pergamon Altar, excavated by Carl Heumann in the 1870s in the ancient city of Pergamon (in present-day Türkiye), has its hall intact.
The original museum was custom-built around this temple structure from the 2nd century BC. Decorated with a frieze in high relief depicting a battle between giants and the Olympian gods, the altar is described in classical lists as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
This space, more impressive than ever, is now flooded with light, as the glass elements of the roof have been completely renewed. A new protective roof structure has been added over the hall, made of glass.
Since it would have been too complicated to remove the altar from the building during the renovation, its elements were kept within the room, protected by covers made especially for the restoration phase.
“To create and renovate a building within its existing collection is quite extraordinary,” Weimer said.
However, other major exhibitions were moved to new locations.
Among them is the Mashatta Mask, a treasure of early Islamic art. It dates back to the era of Caliph al-Walid II (743–744 AD) during the Umayyad period. Excavated near Amman (the present-day capital of Jordan) in 1840, the 33-metre-tall (108-foot-tall) palace facade was given by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II to Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany in 1903.
The Aleppo Room, a series of intricately painted wooden panels belonging to a reception room, was also carefully dismantled during renovation work and moved from the south wing of the museum to the north wing. The paintings, which have been brilliantly restored, combine Christian and Islamic iconography and were purchased in Aleppo in 1912.
The Alhambra Cupola, an intricately carved wooden dome from the 14th century, was also temporarily relocated. The space following its renovation will include various features designed to stimulate visitors’ senses, such as audio installations with poetry, as well as aroma stations emitting scents related to the dome’s origins of cedar and poplar wood.
The dome was acquired in 1885 from the famous former palace of the Alhambra, the historic citadel of Granada, Spain. Originally installed in a private house, it was donated to Pergamon Museum almost a century later.
A unique combination of Islamic art and antiquity
The Pergamon Museum’s collection is unusual in how it brings together Islamic art and ancient Greek treasures.
“What you see here is unique throughout the world, namely the architectural styles of different ancient regions and times under one roof,” said Marianne Ackermann, director general of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees various museum collections, including the Pergamon Museum, at the press presentation.
The concept was established at the museum’s founding to mark the fact that its exhibits of antiquity were excavated in Mesopotamia and the eastern Mediterranean – the same regions where Islamic cultures flourished, Ackerman said.
Ackerman said, “This shows once again that cultures never arise in complete isolation. They always exist in interaction with each other or through transcultural processes.” “And of course, this is a very contemporary and forward-looking way of thinking.”
World heritage fans can now look forward to discovering the careful and bright restoration of this museum in the spring of 2027.
Edited by: Christina Barak