The Museum Island is a museum complex on the northern part of the Spree Island in the historic heart of Berlin, Germany. It is one of the capital's most visited sights and one of the most important museum sites in Europe. Built from 1830 to 1930, by order of the Prussian Kings, according to plans by five architects, Museum Island was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999 because of its testimony to the architectural and cultural development of museums in the 19th and 20th centuries. It consists of the Altes Museum, the Neues Museum, the Alte Nationalgalerie, the Bode-Museum and the Pergamonmuseum. As Museum Island includes all of Spree Island north of the Unter den Linden, the Berlin Cathedral is also located there, near the Lustgarten. To the south, the reconstructed Berlin Palace houses the Humboldt Forum museum and opened in 2020. Since German reunification, the Museum Island has been rebuilt and extended according to a master plan. In 2019, a new visitor center and art gallery, the James Simon Gallery, was opened.
The Pergamon Museum is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin, Germany. It was built from 1910 to 1930 by order of Emperor Wilhelm II according to plans by Alfred Messel and Ludwig Hoffmann in Stripped Classicism style. As part of the Museum Island complex, the Pergamon Museum was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1999 because of its architecture and testimony to the evolution of museums as architectural and social phenomena.
The Neue Nationalgalerie at the Kulturforum is a museum for modern art in Berlin, with its main focus on the early 20th century. It is part of the National Gallery of the Berlin State Museums. The museum building and its sculpture gardens were designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and opened in 1968.
The Altes Museum is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin, Germany. Built from 1825 to 1830 by order of King Frederick William III of Prussia according to plans by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, it is considered as a major work of German Neoclassical architecture. It is surrounded by the Berlin Cathedral to the east, the Berlin Palace to the south and the Zeughaus to the west. Currently, the Altes Museum is home to the Antikensammlung and parts of the Münzkabinett. As part of the Museum Island complex, the Altes Museum was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999, because of its testimony to the development of museums as a social and architectural phenomenon.
The Alte Nationalgalerie is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin, Germany. The gallery was built from 1862 to 1876 by the order of King Frederick William IV of Prussia according to plans by Friedrich August Stüler and Johann Heinrich Strack in Neoclassical and Renaissance Revival styles. The building's outside stair features a memorial to Frederick William IV. Currently, the Alte Nationalgalerie is home to paintings and sculptures of the 19th century and hosts a variety of tourist buses daily. As part of the Museum Island complex, the gallery was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1999 for its outstanding architecture and its testimony to the development of museums and galleries as a cultural phenomenon in the late 19th century.
Nikolaus Geiger was a German sculptor and painter.
The Bode Museum, formerly called the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin. It was built from 1898 to 1904 by order of German Emperor William II according to plans by Ernst von Ihne in Baroque Revival style. The building's front square featured a memorial to German Emperor Frederick III, which was destroyed by the East German authorities. Currently, the Bode-Museum is home to the Skulpturensammlung, the Museum für Byzantinische Kunst and the Münzkabinett. As part of the Museum Island complex, the Bode-Museum was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1999 because of its outstanding architecture and testimony to the development of museums as a cultural phenomenon in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Neues Museum is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin. Built from 1843 to 1855 by order of King Frederick William IV of Prussia in Neoclassical and Renaissance Revival styles, it is considered as the major work of Friedrich August Stüler. After suffering damage in World War II and decay in East Germany, it was restored from 1999 to 2009 by David Chipperfield. Currently, the Neues Museum is home to the Ägyptisches Museum, the Papyrussammlung, the Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte and parts of the Antikensammlung. As part of the Museum Island complex, the museum was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1999 because of its outstanding architecture and testimony to the evolution of museums as a cultural phenomenon.
The Museum of Asian Art is a part of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin since 2020. Before its relocation it was sited in the neighborhood of the borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Berlin, Germany. It is one of the Berlin State Museums institutions and is funded by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. It houses some 20,000 Asian artifacts, making it one of the largest museums of ancient Asian art in the world. The museum is located in the same building as the Ethnological Museum of Berlin. The museum houses important collections of Art houses of South, Southeast and Central Asian countries and art from the Indo-Asian cultural area, from the 4th millennium BC to the present. Its geographic reach covers regions in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, the Autonomous Region of Tibet and Xinjiang of the People's Republic of China, the Southeast Asian countries of Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and also the Indonesian Islands or archipelago.
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation is a German federal government body that oversees 27 museums and cultural organizations in and around Berlin, Germany. Its purview includes all of Berlin's State Museums, the Berlin State Library, the Prussian Privy State Archives and a variety of institutes and research centers. As such, it is one of the largest cultural organizations in the world, and also the largest cultural employer in Germany with around 2,000 staff as of 2020. More than four million people visited its museums in 2019.
Friedrichswerder Church was the first Neo-Gothic church built in Berlin, Germany. It was designed by an architect better known for his Neoclassical architecture, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, and was built under his direction from 1824 to 1831.
The Antikensammlung Berlin is one of the most important collections of classical art in the world, now held in the Altes Museum and Pergamon Museum in Berlin, Germany. It contains thousands of ancient archaeological artefacts from the ancient Greek, Roman, Etruscan and Cypriot civilizations. Its main attraction is the Pergamon Altar and Greek and Roman architectural elements from Priene, Magnesia, Baalbek and Falerii. In addition, the collection includes a large number of ancient sculptures, vases, terracottas, bronzes, sarcophagi, engraved gems and metalwork.
The Ethnological Museum of Berlin is one of the Berlin State Museums, the de facto national collection of the Federal Republic of Germany. It is presently located in the Humboldt Forum in Mitte, along with the Museum of Asian Art. The museum holds more than 500,000 objects and is one of the largest and most important collections of works of art and culture from outside Europe in the world. Its highlights include important objects from the Sepik River, Hawaii, the Kingdom of Benin, Cameroon, Congo, Tanzania, China, the Pacific Coast of North America, Mesoamerica, the Andes, as well as one of the first ethnomusicology collections of sound recordings.
The Museum of European Cultures – National Museums in Berlin – Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation came from the unification of the Europe-Department in the Berlin Museum of Ethnography and the Berlin Museum for Folklore in 1999. The museum focuses on the lived-in world of Europe and European culture contact, predominantly in Germany from the 18th Century until today.
The Kupferstichkabinett, or Museum of Prints and Drawings, is a prints museum in Berlin, Germany. It is part of the Berlin State Museums, and is located in the Kulturforum on Potsdamer Platz. It is the largest museum of graphic art in Germany, with more than 500,000 prints and around 110,000 individual works on paper.
The Central Archive is an academic institution in Berlin, Germany linked with the collections and administrative departments of the Berlin State Museums. It functions as the primary site for research and preservation of the Museums' "memory" and its primary source documents. Its holdings span the history of the State Museums of today back to the former Royal Museums of the Kingdom of Prussia and German Empire. Through consolidation, the holdings have become one of the most important Art History archives in Germany.
The National Gallery in Berlin, Germany, is a museum for art of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. It is part of the Berlin State Museums. From the Alte Nationalgalerie, which was built for it and opened in 1876, its exhibition space has expanded to include five other locations. The museums are part of the Berlin State Museums, owned by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.
Moonrise by the Sea or Moonrise over the Sea is an 1822 oil-on-canvas painting by German painter Caspar David Friedrich. The work depicts a romantic seascape.
The Museum of Islamic Art is located in the Pergamon Museum and is part of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
Hunne zu Pferde is a sculpture by Erich Hösel, installed outside the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin, Germany.
