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Wednesday 29, March

Pergamon Museum to close for 14 year-long renovations

Come October, Berlin's Pergamon Museum will close its doors for 14 years due to major renovations.

Pergamon Altar. Photo: Paul VanDerWerf / Flickr

Wednesday 29, March

On Wednesday, there were 324 new Covid-19 infections reported in Berlin. The seven-day incidence currently stands at 42.1 cases per 100,000 people.

Pergamon Museum to close for 14 year-long renovations

From October 23rd, the Pergamon Museum will be closed for 14 years due to major renovations.

According to current planning, the renovation and construction costs for the southern section of the museum amount to some 722.4 million euros. An additional 300 million euros have been set aside for possible price increases during construction and a total of more than 1.2 billion euros is estimated for the renovation of both sections of the museum, according to rbb.

Only parts of the north wing, which houses the museum’s eponymous Pergamon Altar, are expected to be open for visitors by 2027, while the rest of the museum will remain closed. The Pergamon Altar, which dates back to the first half of the second century BC and was once part of the city of Pergamon in Asia Minor, has long been at the centre of reappropriation debates.

Since the Prussian Empire’s acquisition of the Altar after its so-called discovery during excavations at the end of the 19th century, there have been repeated attempts by numerous Turkish political parties towards a return.

According to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, the southern part of the building is “in a very poor structural condition, which affects the stability of the building and the safety of the exhibits”. A lot of damage had occurred during the bombing of Berlin in WWII, but repairs afterwards were “completely inadequate”.