Pergamon Museum

The Pergamon Museum is a listed archaeological museum situated on Museum Island in the historic center of Berlin, Germany. Constructed between 1910 and 1930 by order of Emperor Wilhelm II, it is renowned for housing monumental reconstructed architectural works from antiquity and the Islamic world. The museum comprises three distinct institutions: the Antikensammlung, the Vorderasiatisches Museum, and the Museum für Islamische Kunst. As part of the Museum Island complex, the building was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1999 for its architectural significance and its testimony to the evolution of museums as social phenomena. The institution has historically been the most visited art museum in Germany, recording roughly 804,000 visitors in 2019.

The current structure is the second building to occupy the site. The first Pergamon Museum, designed by Fritz Wolff, was constructed between 1897 and 1899 and inaugurated by Emperor Wilhelm II on December 18, 1901. However, this initial building suffered from foundation damage and could not adequately display the monumental objects emerging from German excavations in Babylon, Uruk, Assur, and Egypt. Consequently, Wilhelm von Bode, director of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, initiated plans for a larger replacement in 1906. Alfred Messel designed the monumental three-wing structure in 1907, and after his death in 1909, his friend Ludwig Hoffmann oversaw its execution. Construction began in 1910, delayed by the First World War and the inflation of the 1920s, and the building officially opened in 1930. Initially, only the antiquities wing bore the Pergamon name, but since 1958 the entire structure has been known as the Pergamon Museum.

The museum houses three distinct collections. The Antikensammlung, which traces its origins to acquisitions by the prince-electors of Brandenburg in 1698, spans the archaic to Hellenistic ages with architecture, sculptures, inscriptions, mosaics, bronzes, jewelry, and pottery. It is shared with the Altes Museum. The Vorderasiatisches Museum displays objects from German excavations in Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Hittite, and Persian cultures, featuring monumental architecture alongside smaller cultural artifacts and jewelry. The Museum für Islamische Kunst, which originated as a department in the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum in 1904 before moving to the south wing of the Pergamon in 1932, covers Islamic art and architectural elements. Additionally, the Antikensammlung holds a numismatic collection of over 500,000 coins.

The museum is internationally celebrated for its monumental architectural reconstructions. The Antikensammlung centers on the Pergamon Altar, a second-century BC structure featuring a 113-meter sculptural frieze depicting the Gigantomachie, the struggle between the Olympian gods and the giants, as well as the myth of Telephos. This wing also contains the Roman Market Gate of Miletus. The Vorderasiatisches Museum features the Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way of Babylon, adorned with blue tiles depicting dragons and bulls, alongside the throne room facade of Nebuchadnezzar II and the Meissner fragment from the Epic of Gilgamesh. The Museum für Islamische Kunst holds the Mshatta Facade, the Aleppo Room dating from 1600 to 1603, the Alhambra dome, the mihrabs of Kashan and Konya, and the early fifteenth-century Dragon and Phoenix carpet from Central Asia.

Designed in the Stripped Classicism style, the museum is a deep three-wing structure oriented toward the southwest and the Spree river. The tall central building at the end of the long forecourt is windowless. The side wings feature colossal Doric pilasters above a plinth, with their river-facing facades projecting slightly and adorned with six Doric half-columns. The exterior utilizes various natural stones, including Franconian and Oberdolaer Muschelkalk from Thuringia, Lusatian granodiorite, Beuchaer granite porphyry from Saxony, and Bale limestone from Croatia. Less prominent facades use a dark grey cement plaster imitating natural stone. The building suffered severe damage during World War II air raids. While many large exhibits were walled in for safety, the Red Army transported a large portion of the collection to the Soviet Union in 1945. Most objects were returned to East Germany by 1958, though significant parts of the collection remain in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow and the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, their return blocked by Russian restitution laws.

Located in the Mitte district of Berlin, the museum is currently undergoing a comprehensive renovation as part of the broader Museum Island masterplan. An architectural competition in 2000 was won by Oswald Mathias Ungers, whose design controversially proposes major alterations to the building, including a fourth wing replacing the current entrance in the Court of Honor and an underground Archaeological Promenade connecting four of the five island museums. The museum was partially closed from 2014 until October 2023, when it was completely shuttered for extensive structural work. The renovation, estimated at roughly 477 million euros, will keep the museum largely closed for 14 to 20 years, with the North Wing and the Pergamon Altar hall expected to reopen in 2027 and full completion projected for 2037.