Created as the last of the five main buildings on Berlin’s Museum Island, its unique exhibition of ancient monumental architecture soon made the Pergamonmuseum famous worldwide.

As a building, however, the neoclassical three-winged complex was highly controversial from the outset. The long-standing disputes over an appropriate design for the presentation of such large exhibits contributed to the fact that construction progress was repeatedly delayed. When the museum was finally opened in 1930 after more than two decades of construction, it was considered by many to be architecturally outdated.

The situation is completely different in terms of structural quality. Here, the demanding specifications for the new spaciousness of the exhibition halls, the various plan changes and adaptation requests and, above all, unforeseen foundation problems led to innovative and, for their time, highly modern structural engineering solutions.

The foundation of the building proved to be the greatest challenge to be mastered.