Tunnel under museums will help tourists in a rush

Jean-Baptiste Piggin, Deutsche Presse-Agentur, Berlin

A tunnel is to built underneath four of Berlin's leading museums so that tourists in a hurry can see the city's top ancient art treasures in a basement-level "archaeological promenade".

For visitors who don't even have that much time to spare, the museum administration is planning an even shorter circuit that concentrates on just the Pergamon Museum, which houses huge ancient buildings transferred stone by stone to Berlin a century ago.

That museum, opened in 1930, not only houses the Pergamon Altar (which is not so much an altar as a temple) from the Hellenistic city of Pergamum in Turkey, but also the Ishtar Gate of Babylon and the market Gate of Miletus, an outstanding example of Roman architecture.

A new Egyptian wing to be built at the front of the Pergamon will mean visitors can also see the 3,350-year-old Egyptian bust of Queen Nefertiti, currently housed at a different museum in suburban Berlin.

The changes are part of a major investment program for the Island of Museums, a site between two arms of the river Spree that has housed royal collections since 1840 but vanished from the tourist Grand Tour of Europe during two world wars and the communist era.

These days, crawling tour buses block downtown streets near the island and visitors who have ticked off the British Museum in London, the Paris Louvre and the Colosseum in Rome often try to squeeze in Berlin as well during their trip of a lifetime to Europe.

Every year 800,000 visitors tour the Pergamon alone.

For the lone visitor, it can all be too much: the vast galleries crammed with art treasures, the towering stairs, unconnected buildings and a jumbled arrangement that makes it hard to find the must-see exhibits.

The promenade through 4,000 years of art will provide one answer.

Creative juxtaposing - for example of Pablo Picasso's Cubist portrait of a woman, Dora Maar, next to a Pharaonic relief - will encourage visitors to consider what the epochs have in common.

Using a single ticket, visitors will be able to see Greek portraits and sculptures in the basement of the Altes Museum, an Egyptian sarcophagus under the Neues Museum, early Islamic murals under the Pergamon and Byzantine graves under the Bode Museum.

Parts of the walkway will be in the open air, passing through existing courtyards, and visitors will pass under a railway line and a roadway by tunnel. Wheelchair users will have full access.

If visitors like what they see, they can ascend by lift to see any of the collections above.

One level higher in the Pergamon will be the short circuit with the prime treasures, such as the Babylonian remains, which were meticulously re-assembled from thousands of broken glazed bricks.

Critics say that reducing the visitor experience to a few dozen choice treasures is dumbing down, but Dietrich Wildung, director of the Egyptian Museum, says the museums cannot ignore what society expects of them.

The redevelopment also includes a major new concourse building. Designed by British architect David Chipperfield, it will become the entrance for bus tourists, funnel them towards the short circuit and include a bookshop and restaurant for them to visit on the way out.

The planned tunnel under the museums may not be ready till 2010 or even 2012, when the refurbishment of the complex is to be completed.

If federal funding does not materialize, completion may be even slower, as entrance fees cover less than 5 per cent of the costs.

For the time being, visitors are advised to allow a little more time for their stay on the Island of Museums and to avoid the hottest summer days, when a lack of air-conditioning may take some of the gloss off a visit to the Pergamon.

The grandeur of the galleries and the exhibits easily compensates for the lack of the latest amenities.

Refurbishment of the stunning 2nd-century-BC Pergamon Altar is three quarters complete. Restorer Silvano Bertolin unveiled its 29-metre-long South Frieze in January. The sculptures on the altar depict a battle between the gods and giants.