At Last, Berlin’s Pergamon Museum Has A (Partial) Reopening Date

BERLIN (AP) — Berlin’s Pergamon Museum, traditionally one of the German capital’s top tourist attractions, will reopen next year after the first part of a painstaking restoration effort that has kept its centerpiece out of the public eye for more than a decade.

The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees many of Berlin’s museums, announced Monday that the museum will reopen on June 4, 2027.

The museum’s centerpiece is the 2nd-century B.C. Pergamon Altar. Decorated with a marble frieze, it was built between 197 and 156 B.C. in what is now Bergama, Turkey.

The Pergamon Museum has been closed altogether since October 2023. The part of the building containing the Pergamon Altar has been closed for far longer, since 2014.

Some parts will remain closed for work even after next year’s reopening, notably the wing containing Babylon’s Ishtar Gate. The museum is slated to reopen fully in 2037.

The museum is being restored as part of a long-term plan to overhaul the neoclassical Museum Island complex, which was built between 1830 and 1930 and is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Parts of the island were badly damaged during World War II, and cash-strapped communist East Germany never fully restored it. Work on three of the five museums has already been completed and a new entrance building for the complex, the James Simon Gallery, was opened in 2019.