page_title: Alfred Messel
section_title: Pergamon Museum
hierarchical_section_title: Alfred Messel / Buildings / Pergamon Museum
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Berlin – Eingangsbereich zum Pergamonmuseum Polski: Główne wejście do Muzeum Pergamońskiego Magyar: A berlini Pergamon Múzeum főbejáratának előtere
context_page_description: Alfred Messel was one of the most well-known German architect at the turning point to the 20th century, creating a new style for buildings which bridged the transition from historicism to modernism. Messel was able to combine the structure, decoration, and function of his buildings, which ranged from department stores, museums, office buildings, mansions, and social housing to soup kitchens, into a coherent, harmonious whole. As an urban architect striving for excellence he was in many respects ahead of his time. His most well known works, the Wertheim department stores and the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, reflect a new concept of self-confident metropolitan architecture. His architectural drawings and construction plans are preserved at the Architecture Museum of the Technical University of Berlin.
context_section_description: Messel had long been interesting in the design plan for the Museum Island and since 1907 had been developing plans for the Pergamon Museum. It remains to this day the monumental, austere three-wing neoclassical construction which he conceived but did not live to see realized as he died in 1909. It was constructed with slight modifications between 1910 and 1930 under the supervision of Messel's close friend, the architect and city planning official Ludwig Hoffmann. The museum was badly damaged in World War II, and starting in 2010 modifications of the building will be undertaken as part of the master plan for Berlin's Museum Island.
  The museum's external monumentality is in the same spirit as many of the relics on display inside, not least the reconstruction of the imposing western side of the Pergamon Altar itself with its three wings. The changes made by Hoffmann on the building's exterior had a restraining and moderating effect. The most noticeable were the raising of the eaves, the flattening of the pediment and the addition of a metope and triglyph frieze. Despite such smoothening interventions, the basic rigidity and blockiness which characterized Messel's last work was retained.
caption: Entrance to the Pergamon Museum, Berlin
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