BERLIN.- Starting on 2 January 2012, the Museum of Decorative Arts will be closing its location at the Kulturforum due to construction of an exhibition gallery for the museum's fashion collection, which has grown in recent years as a result of numerous new acquisitions. In the future, this new focus of the museum's collections will make it possible to present an extraordinary overview of the development of fashions in Europe from the 18th century to the present.

Furthermore, jewelry, porcelain, glass art and Art Nouveau furniture will be shown in a newly designed exhibition. Many of these works were acquired by Julius Lessing, the museum's first director, at the 1900 World's Fair in Paris from well-known manufacturers such as Lalique, Tiffany and Sèvres. The design collections, which include Bauhaus classics, German designs from the 1950s, and current products from around the world, will also be reorganized, along with the museum's foyer and the visitor services area.

The construction work will be overseen by the Berlin-based architects Kuehn Malvezzi. The firm is experienced in building museums, and the new spaces they create will add modern accents to the building, which first opened in 1985. The museum is scheduled to reopen in the first half of 2014.

The Museum of Decorative Arts will continue to be open to visitors at its Köpenick Palace site, where unique treasures of interior design from the Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo can be seen. Many important works from the extensive medieval collection, including the most important reliquaries from the Guelph Treasure (Welfenschatz), will be shown through the spring of 2013 in the 'Treasures of Faith' exhibition at the Bode Museum on Berlin's Museum Island.