order of the king and his cabinet, the Kommission für den Bau der Nationalgalerie (Commission for the construction of the national gallery) was created. Ground was broken in 1867 under the supervision of Heinrich Strack. In 1872 the structure was completed and interior work began. The opening took place on March 22, 1876 in the presence of William I, who was by then German Emperor. The building, today the Alte Nationalgalerie, resembles a Greco-Roman temple (a form chosen for its symbolism that, it has been pointed out, is not well suited to displaying art) and is stylistically a combination of late Classicism and early Neo-Renaissance. It was intended to express "the unity of art, nation, and history", and therefore has aspects reminiscent of a church (with an apse) and a theatre (a grand staircase leading to the entry) as well as a temple. An equestrian statue of Frederick William IV tops the stairs, and the inside stairs have a frieze by Otto Geyer depicting German history from prehistoric times to the 19th century. The inscription over the door reads "To German art, 1871" (the year of the founding of the Empire, not the year the gallery was completed). On his first visit to Berlin, in November 1916, the young Adolf Hitler sent a postcard of this building to a comrade in arms to congratulate him on receiving the Iron Cross. Until 1933 The first director of the National Gallery was Max Jordan, who was appointed in 1874, before the building was completed. When the building opened, in addition to Wagener's collection, it contained over 70 cartoons for friezes on mythological and religious subjects by Peter von Cornelius; high-ceilinged galleries were designed to accommodate them. Wagener's collection was not limited to German art; in particular, it included Belgian artists who were popular at the time; and under Jordan the gallery's holdings rapidly came to include an unusually large collection of sculpture and a drawings department. However, Jordan was hampered throughout his tenure by the Regional Art Commission, which was made up of representatives of the academic art establishment and resisted all attempts to acquire modernist art. In 1896, he was succeeded as director by Hugo von Tschudi, formerly assistant head of the Berlin museums under Wilhelm von Bode. Although he had previously had no association with modern art, he was fired with enthusiasm for Impressionism on a visit to Paris where