Museum Island

Her name means “the beautiful woman has come” – and anyone who sees the bust of Nefertiti is sure to fall under her spell. Nefertiti’s smile, as mysterious as the Mona Lisa, her captivating beauty and the aura of this remarkable work make a visit to the Neues Museum a highlight on any Berlin tour.

One Island – Five Museums – One Ticket

Berlin’s Museum Island (Museumsinsel) is a magnificent total art work, a truly outstanding ensemble of five world-renowned museums. Apart for the legendary bust of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti, the most famous and important cultural exhibits on show here include the breathtaking Pergamon Altar and the stunning Ishtar Gate. In 1999, the Museum Island complex was inscribed as UNESCO World Heritage. 

The five museums on Museum Island are:

1. Pergamonmuseum (Pergamon Museum)
2. Bode-Museum
3. Neues Museum (New Museum)
4. Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery)
5. Altes Museum (Old Museum)

Museum Island – History

The first museum on the island was the Altes Museum (Old Museum). Opened in 1830, it was designed to give the general public access to collections of art and historically important objects and artefacts. This nineteenth-century notion of a museum as a public institution celebrating great works of art had its roots in the Age of Enlightenment and its educational ideals. Already known as the Museum Island by the late 1870s, the ensemble of five museums was finally completed in 1930.

In the modern period, the collections of rulers and princes came to be seen not just as a resource for scholarship and knowledge, but also a source of national pride. In that spirit, the very first public museums were founded in the eighteenth century. In Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm II was instrumental in the construction of the Altes Museum, which opened its doors as Prussia’s pioneering public museum in 1830. The neo-classical design was by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Prussia’s leading nineteenth-century architect.

Nearly thirty years later, the Altes Museum was joined by the second Royal Prussian museum - today’s Neues Museum (New Museum). In 1876, a national gallery – now the Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery) – was added. The final two museums on Museum Island were only constructed in the early twentieth century: the Kaiser Friedrich Museum – today’s Bode-Museum – opened in 1904, and the Pergamon Museum in 1930. Fortunately, the plans for a gigantomaniac rebuild under the Nazi regime were never realised. The Second World War left much of the Museum Island badly damaged, and the Neues Museum in ruins. In the post-1945 era, the Museum Island was in East Germany. The reconstruction began under the GDR regime, although the Neues Museum was left as a ruin.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Board of Trustees decided in 1999 to comprehensively renovate the ensemble, the so-called Master Plan Museum Island. This included the reconstruction of the Neues Museum and the restoration of the other museums. In addition, the individual museum buildings, each of which looks in a different direction, are to be connected to form an ensemble.

A large central entrance building, the James Simon Gallery, will welcome guests with a wide range of services and information and direct the streams of visitors to the buildings. The British star architect David Chipperfield, whose office David Chipperfield Architects has already taken over the reconstruction of the Neues Museum, can be won over for the planning. The Archaeological Promenade will connect four of the five museums and exhibit important objects from the art collections.

James Simon Gallery

On a weekend in July 2019, around 40,000 visitors will celebrate the opening of the James Simon Gallery, which offers special exhibition areas and a large auditorium, as well as a sun terrace, restaurant, museum shop and a large open staircase on an area of almost 11,000 square metres.

The Neues Museum and the Pergamonmuseum are already accessible from the new entrance centre, before the Alte Nationalgalerie and the Bodemuseum can also be connected in the coming years.

The name donor James Simon (1851-1932), a Jewish citizen of Berlin and a passionate art collector, is now being honoured for the first time in a very special way: he is the most important patron of the Museum Island, and the Berlin museums owe unique collections to him. His most famous gift to Museum Island is under the north dome of the Neues Museum: the bust of Nefertiti.

Pergamonmuseum

Designed by architect Alfred Messel, the Pergamon Museum attracts around one million visitors every year, making it Berlin’s most popular museum. Under the Master Plan Museum Island, the refurbishment of the Pergamon Museum is ongoing until 2025. In this process, the museum, originally designed with three wings, will have a fourth wing added. The large room showing the Pergamon Altar is presently closed until 2019. However, visitors can still view the remarkable Ishtar Gate and Processional Way, the impressive Roman Market Gate of Miletus, and the fascinating collection in the Museum of Islamic Art. The new wing with glass façades will be showing the Kalabscha Gate, the columned hall of Pharaoh Sahure, and the Tell Halaf façade. 

Bode-Museum

The Bode-Museum’s general refurbishment and renovation was concluded in 2005. Now, in its new splendour, it houses an extensive collection of sculptures from the medieval period to the late eighteenth century, as well as treasures from the Museum of Byzantine Art and the Numismatic Collection. The museum is located at the northern tip of Museum Island. In summer, the opposite bank of the river with its wonderful view is a popular place to meet and relax. 

Neues Museum

Work started on the original Neues Museum (New Museum) in 1841. Designed by Prussian master builder and court architect Friedrich August Stüler, the construction alone was a sensation. Not only did the design extensively use prefabricated cast and wrought iron structural elements, but steam power was the main source of energy on the site. In the Second World War, the museum was severely damaged and it remained a ruin until 1999. Rebuilding and refurbishing the museum took ten years, a process led by the offices of the renowned architect David Chipperfield. Since the museum’s spectacular reopening in 2009, it has presented a selection of outstanding pieces from the Egyptian Museum, the Papyrus Collection, the Museum of Prehistory and Early History, and the Collection of Classical Antiquities. The famous bust of the Ancient Egyptian queen Nefertiti is the showpiece exhibit in the Neues Museum.

Alte Nationalgalerie

The Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery), set on a plinth, rises impressively over the Museum Island rather like a “temple of the arts”. And with Prussian court architect Friedrich August Stüler inspired by the Acropolis in Athens, his design resonated with just that quasi-religious mood of the muses. After nearly ten years work, the gallery was opened in 1876. It now not only shows painting and sculpture from the neoclassical period through Romanticism to the Biedermeier period (1815-1848), but also Impressionist and early modernist art. The collection includes works by such renowned artists as Caspar David Friedrich, Claude Monet, Edouard Manet, Auguste Renoir, Max Liebermann, Lovis Corinth, Adolphe Menzel, Karl Blechen and Karl Friedrich Schinkel. The gallery is also home to Johann Gottfried Schadow’s Princesses Luise and Friederike, regarded as the most beautiful sculpture by a Prussian artist. 

Altes Museum

Designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the Altes Museum (Old Museum) was opened in 1830 as the first museum on Museum Island. At that time, the striking neoclassical façade structured by Ionic columns, expansive foyer and attractive rotunda were quite exceptional for a public building. Today, after refurbishment, the museum is home to a permanent exhibition showcasing the arts and sculpture from classical antiquity, from ancient Greece to the Roman Empire, including portrait busts of Caesar and Cleopatra. An especial highlight is the collection of Etruscan art, the largest outside Italy.