Deutsches Museum

The Deutsches Museum stood in the northern wing of today’s Pergamonmuseum on Berlin’s Museum Island. It opened in 1930 to house German artworks from the city’s collections. Wilhelm von Bode, the general director, wanted a single place for medieval sculpture, early Netherlandish paintings and German Renaissance works. The museum was worth the journey for its bold plan and lively debates. Alfred Messel designed the building before Ludwig Hoffmann finished the work in 1930. Theodor Demmler defended the project against critics who compared it to Paris’s Trocadéro. In 1936 an Olympic exhibition filled its halls with bronze copies of ancient statues. Yet by 1939 the war closed it for good. Visitors found two storeys of carefully arranged art. The main floor showed medieval sculpture and casts of German masterpieces in the Gipsgalerie. Upstairs hung paintings by Dürer, Holbein and Cranach, while side rooms held works from the James Simon bequest. Below, the study collection of sculpture filled the basement. Today the same spaces prepare for the Museum of Islamic Art.