12.02.2015
Pergamonmuseum
If he possibly can, Austrian President, Dr Heinz Fischer, makes every visit to Berlin an opportunity to visit the Museumsinsel. This was his second visit in the past four years.
A tour of the Museum für Islamische Kunst (Museum for Islamic Art) with Prof. Dr Stefan Weber included the Aleppo Room, where Dr Fischer was particularly captivated by the painted wooden panelling from the reception room of a Christian merchant (Aleppo/Syria, c. 1600). He noted with great interest that representations of Christian and Islamic themes appeared side by side, bearing witness to the peaceful co-existence of the two religions at the time.
In the Vorderasiatisches Museum, Dr Fischer was very impressed by the Babylonian Processional Way and the Ishtar Gate, reconstructed in the museum. He was also interested in the clay cone mosaics used to decorate the mud-brick walls of 4th-century monumental buildings in Uruk.