Messel, Alfred

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Messel, Alfred (1853–1909). German architect. He established (1886) his practice in Berlin, designing numerous apartment-blocks and private houses. His first major work was the Hessisches Landesmuseum, Darmstadt (1890s), with rooms decorated in period styles. At the same time he began to carry out work for the Wertheim department store firm: the second store for Wertheim on the Leipzigerstrasse, Berlin (1896–7), was the first steel-framed building in the capital, and was influential. His later Berlin buildings were in a simplified Neo-Classical style, including the AEG office building (1906–7), the National Bank (1907–8), and his well-known Pergamon Museum, designed to house the great Hellenistic altar and various architectural fragments (1909–30—built under the direction of Ludwig Ernst Emil Hoffmann (1852–1932) ).

Bibliography

Jane Turner (1996)

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