The second construction phase begins at the Pergamon Museum

Unfortunately only the beginning of the second section: the reopening is only planned for 2037. Until then, another 722 million euros will be installed, plus something from the cleverly formed risk reserve of 295 million. A proud sum for the 22,700 square meter gross area of ​​the construction phase B, which result in 7,500 square meters of pure museum uses. But as it became clear yesterday during the farewell tour through the components to be renovated, the project follows a well thought -out concept.

It is without an alternative to leave the ancient large architectures such as the procession road from Babylon and the Milet market goal on the spot, which requires enormous measures to protect and security during the building. Tabula Rasa must also be made about it in the glass roofs. Completely new light ceilings have to be constructed, the lack of air conditioning of the house so far. The reinforced concrete bridge above the aqueous Kolk must be renovated, on which the building had to be placed after the start of construction in 1910. You can hardly imagine an unfavorable building site.

Brick walls stuck together

What was restored after the devastation of the Second World War under oppressive shortage of materials is now evident that the gracious disguises are decreased in front of the brick walls, as what it was: as a provisional of an indefinable useful life. It has expired now at the latest, and with all respect for the performance of the GDR years, durability must now be made for the next hundred years. At least.

The participants of the ceremony followed with a laughing and a crying eye. The crying ended for the twelve years of withdrawal of public visibility of the treasures, especially for tourist operations, the laughing view of the prospect of fundamental improvement. The more is than that, because construction phase B not only includes the renovation of the inventory, but also the supplement by the fourth wing along the copper ditch, in order to absorb the Egyptian architectures that are still in Charlottenburg and to exhibit in the brightest daylight.

The architect Oswald Mathias Ungers, who died in 2007, planned to plan this wing and a representative “Pergamonsteg”, whose legacy started with all the sensitivity of Jan Kleihues, which was similarly rationalistically designed. The renderings presented yesterday show how well the fourth wing will insert into the historical substance of the pergamon museum more or less completed on both sides.

The construction phase A, the north wing of the museum with the name-giving Pergamon altar and the Museum of Islamic Art, which is then located on a doubled area, will be completed at the end of this year. After drawing up the carefully kept individual objects, this half of the complex will be reopened in 2027. Then the inner logic of the entire construction process will come to light – a quarter of a century after the first steps for renovation. The progress is a snail, but in this case one that has not lost its goal from the eye.