The Pergamon Museum In Berlin, Germany To Get New Fourth Wing To Display Egyptian And Islamic Era Civilization

"The Pergamon Museum, one of the most popular tourist sites in Berlin, will be getting a massive restoration with a new wing, according to museum officials.

The neoclassical museum, home to ancient works from Greek, Roman, Sumerian, Babylonian and Assyrian cultures, will get a 351 million euro ($474.5 million) renovation, which will be financed by the German government.

The museum, which houses the second century BC [BCE] Pergamon Altar and Babylon’s Ishstar Gate, drew about 900,000 visitors in 2005.

A new fourth wing will be built across the entrance to the museum’s courtyard and will allow the institution to "show all major cultures on a single level," said Klaus Dieter Lehmann, head of the city’s Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.

"You will then have … everything from Mesopotamia, through Egypt, Greece, Rome and classical antiquity up to the Islamic era," Lehmann told a news conference Monday.

The museum was opened in 1930 and is the best known of the five museums on Berlin’s Museum Island, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Stefan Vieths, a representative of project architect Oswald Mathias Ungers, says work will start in 2011 and continue until 2026." ...

Source: www.cbc.ca "Berlin museum gets major facelift" February 27, 2006

http://www.cbc.ca/story/arts/national/2006/02/27/pergamon-museum.html?ref=rss











Pergamonmuseum, Berlin, Germany. Shown is the entrance courtyard where the Museum's fourth wing will be constructed. The museum drew 900,000 visitors in 2005, and is the best known of the five museums on Berlin’s Museum Island, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. [It is the first museum that I ever visited in Europe -- in 1972.]

http://www.smb.spk-berlin.de/e/loc/m.html

http://whc.unesco.org

http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31&id_site=896

Photo credit: www.bbr.bund.de/.../ museumsinsel_fotos.htm