Inside the Pergamon: Ancient Wonders, Berlin Stories

What happens when you rebuild a museum around ancient monuments? Former Pergamon curator Dr. Pınar Durgun takes us behind closed doors. Berlin’s Pergamon Museum: Behind Closed Doors Ancient wonders, a monumental renovation, and a curator’s perspective — with Dr. Pınar Durgun What happens when one of the world’s most extraordinary museums closes its doors - with some of its biggest treasures still inside? Berlin’s Pergamonmuseum is famous for bringing entire ancient worlds indoors: monumental gates, temples, façades and archaeological objects that allow visitors to walk through the architecture of civilizations thousands of years old. Then, in October 2023, the museum fully closed for an extraordinary renovation project that will continue in stages for more than a decade. For this special evening in New York, Dr. Pınar Durgun, a former curator at the Vorderasiatisches Museum inside the Pergamonmuseum, takes us behind the closed doors. An insider’s look at one of Berlin’s most famous museums Dr. Durgun worked with the Pergamonmuseum’s Ancient Near Eastern collection and was there during the museum’s final days before closure. Through images and stories from the collection, she’ll explore three big questions: What exactly is inside the Pergamonmuseum? From Babylon’s spectacular blue Ishtar Gate to the Market Gate of Miletus, the Pergamon Altar, and objects spanning thousands of years of ancient Western Asian history, the museum doesn't only house monuments but it is a monument itself opened in right before WWII and survived the destruction of the war. Why did Berlin reconstruct ancient architecture on such an enormous scale and what is original, reconstructed or restored? How did the ancient world end up in Berlin? The story of the Pergamonmuseum is also a story of archaeology, excavation, empires, collecting and changing ideas about museums. How were these objects brought to Germany? How did curators transform archaeological discoveries into the monumental displays visitors know today? And how should museums tell those stories now? How do you renovate a museum when the museum itself contains monuments? Some of the Pergamonmuseum’s enormous architectural installations cannot simply be packed into a box and moved elsewhere. As the building undergoes one of Europe’s most ambitious museum renovations, some monuments have remained protected inside while construction takes place around them. About the speaker Dr. Pınar Durgun is Associate Curator of Ancient Western Asian Seals and Tablets at The Morgan Library & Museum in New York. Previously, she worked as a curator at the Vorderasiatisches Museum, the Ancient Near Eastern museum housed within Berlin’s Pergamonmuseum. Her work explores ancient Anatolia and Western Asia, archaeology, museums, cultural heritage and museum ethics. She was also part of the museum team that documented the Pergamonmuseum’s final days before its complete closure in 2023 and curated its closure events for the public. You can read her summary of the closure here. Who is this event for? Anyone interested in: 🏛️ Ancient history and archaeology 🇩🇪 Berlin and German cultural history 🗿 Museums and monumental architecture 📜 Ancient Mesopotamia and Anatolia 🎨 Art history and cultural heritage 🏗️ The extraordinary logistics behind rebuilding a world-famous museum You absolutely do not need to be an archaeologist or historian. This is designed as an accessible illustrated talk for curious people who want to understand the stories behind one of Berlin’s most fascinating places. Think of it as a virtual tour of its history with a curator. Event details 📍 Where: Black Forest Brooklyn - Smith Street, 181 Smith St, Brooklyn, NY 11201 📅 When: Nov 9th, 2026 🕒 Doors: 6.30pm arrival 🎤 Talk begins: 6.55pm 🥂 Afterwards: Drinks / Q&A / socialising 🎟️ Tickets: $29 (discounted to $9 until Oct 31st) Berlin’s Pergamonmuseum contains monuments that survived thousands of years. Now the museum itself is being rebuilt around them. Join us for an evening inside the archaeology, history and extraordinary reconstruction of one of Berlin’s most famous museums. This event is independently organised and is not an official event of, sponsored by, or affiliated with the Pergamonmuseum, the Vorderasiatisches Museum, the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin or Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz.