Staff at one of Berlin’s most beloved attractions, the Pergamon, have announced that the museum will be closed completely until 2027 and partially closed until 2037. In the meantime, some Pergamon exhibits will be on display at other museums in Germany and internationally.

Pergamon museum to close for renovations

Visitors heading to Berlin sometime soon - or anytime within the next 14 years - should take note that the Pergamon museum will be completely or partially closed for the foreseeable future.

From October 2023 the Museum Island location will undergo substantial renovations, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and Federal Office for Building and Planning announced this week. Originally, two construction phases were planned so that parts of the museum would be open throughout the renovation period. But changes to the plan mean that the whole museum will first be closed until 2027.

Once it partly reopens in spring 2027, the Pergamon Altar, a reconstruction of the ancient Greek monument, will be on show again. The Pergamon Altar stands in the northern wing of the museum, which has been closed since 2013. While renovations are underway, artefacts, sculptures and monuments will remain on display in Berlin at other galleries and museums, such as the Pergamon Panorama, Hamburger Bahnhof. Further afield, some will even make it into the Louvre.

Renovations will make the museum “future proof”

While renovations are underway, the exhibits not displayed at other locations will be restored. Some larger exhibits, such as the Mshatta Façade, the Aleppo Room and the Alhambra Cupola will be disassembled and reassembled in different parts of the museum once renovations are complete.

According to Barbara Große-Rhode part of the aim of the renovations is to make the Pergamon “future-proof”. Große-Rhode told SPIEGEL that the building complex is “prone to damage” and that it was necessary “to do justice to a sophisticated building”.

The Pergamon lies on Berlin’s famous Museum Island, a cluster of five further museums and galleries surrounded by the River Spree. Built between 1830 and 1930 the site was given UNESCO World Heritage status in 1999.

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