Entrance Colonnade

The entrance colonnade was designed by Max Berg, the architect of Centennial Hall. It was built in 1925, twelve years after the main building opened. Rather than a surviving piece of temporary decoration from the Centennial Exhibition, it is a later, permanent addition to the Exhibition Grounds.

The columns are made of reinforced concrete, the material that also made the great dome possible. Their regular arrangement forms a monumental gateway rather than an enclosed room: the gaps between the columns provide passages into an open space.

The square was modelled on an ancient forum. The colonnade marks its entrance and frames the approach to the Hall; the architecture here includes the empty space between buildings. This layout belongs to the overall composition of the Exhibition Grounds developed by Berg and Hans Poelzig.

Despite wartime losses, the colonnade survives along the principal axes of the site, together with the Hall, Four Domes Pavilion and Pergola with its pond. Seen together, these structures reveal a complex planned as more than a collection of separate buildings. Entrances, squares and passageways connected them into a single exhibition site.