Museums and Tourism in
Berlin by Lucrezia
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Index
Museums in Berlin (Introduction)
p.3
Alte Nationalgalerie
p.3
Bode Museum
p.4
Pergamon Museum
p.5
Museum of Photography
p.6
Brücke Museum
p.6
Jewish Museum Berlin
p.7
Bauhaus Archive
p.8
Museum für Naturkunde
p.9
Schloss Britz
p.9
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Museums In Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of
3.5 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper
and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union. Located in northeastern
Germany on the River Spree, it is the center of the Berlin-Brandenburg Metropolitan Region,
which has about 4.5 million residents from over 180 nations.
The metropolis is a popular tourist destination and home to renowned universities, orchestras,
museums, entertainment venues, and is host to many sporting events .Its urban setting has made
it a sought-after location for international film productions. The city is well known for its
festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, and the arts.
Among the most famous and world-known museums there are:
 Alte Nationalgalerie
 Bode Museum
 Pergamon Museum
 Museum of Photography
 Brücke Museum
 Jewish Museum Berlin
 Bauhaus Archive
 Museum für Naturkunde
 Schloss Britz
Here is a brief description of the museums: (back to top)
Alte Nationalgalerie
This is a gallery showing a collection of
Neoclassical,
Impressionist
Romantic,
and
early
Biedermeier,
Modernist
artwork, part of the Berlin National
Gallery, which in turn is part of the
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. It is the
original building of the National Gallery,
whose holdings are now housed in
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several additional buildings. It is situated on Museum Island, a UNESCO-designated World
Heritage Site.
The collection contains works of the Neoclassical and Romantic movements (by artists such as
Caspar David Friedrich, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, and Karl Blechen), of the Biedermeier, French
Impressionism (such as Édouard Manet and Claude Monet) and early Modernism (including
Adolph von Menzel, Max Liebermann and Lovis Corinth). Among the most important exhibits are
Friedrich's Der Mönch am Meer (The Monk by the Sea), von Menzel's Eisenwalzwerk (The Iron
Rolling Mill) and sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow's Prinzessinnengruppe, a double statue of
princesses Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Frederica of Prussia. The Alte Nationalgalerie
houses one of the largest collections of 19th-century sculptures and paintings in Germany. (back
to top)
Bode Museum
Is one of the groups of museums on the Museum Island in Berlin, Germany; it is a historically
preserved building. The museum was designed by architect Ernst von Ihne and completed in
1904. Originally called the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum after Emperor Frederick III, the museum
was renamed in honor of its first curator, Wilhelm von Bode, in 1956. is now the home for a
collection of sculptures, Byzantine art, and coins and medals. The presentation of the collections
is both geographic and chronological, with the Byzantine and Gothic art of northern and
southern Europe displayed separately on the museum’s first floor and a similar regional division
of Renaissance and Baroque art on its second floor.
The sculpture collection shows art of the Christian Orient (with an emphasis on Coptic Egypt),
sculptures from Byzantium and Ravenna, sculptures of the Middle Ages, the Italian Gothic, and
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the early Renaissance. Late German Gothic works are also represented by Tilman
Riemenschneider, the south German Renaissance, and Prussian baroque art up to the 18th century.
Also, the Münzkabinett ("coin cabinet") is one of the world's largest numismatic collections. Its
range spans from the beginning of minting in the 7th century BC in Asia Minor up to the
present day. With approximately 500,000 items the collection is a unique archive for historical
research, while its medal collection makes it an important art exhibition at the same time. (back
to top)
Pergamon Museum
Is situated on the Museum
Island in Berlin. The site was
designed by Alfred Messel and
Ludwig Hoffmann and was
constructed in twenty years,
from
1910
to
1930.
The
Pergamon Museum houses
original-sized,
reconstructed
monumental buildings such as
the Pergamon Altar and the
Market Gate of Miletus, all consisting of parts transported from Turkey. The museum is
subdivided into the antiquity collection, the Middle East museum, and the museum of Islamic
art. The museum is visited by approximately 1,135,000 people every year, making it the one of
the most visited art museum in Germany.
The antiquity collection goes back to the Electors, or Kurfürsten, of Brandenburg, who collected
objects from antiquity; the collection began with an acquisition to the collection by a Roman
archaeologist in 1698. It first became accessible (in part) to the public in 1830, when the Altes
Museum was opened. The collection expanded greatly with the excavations in Olympia, Samos,
Pergamon, Miletus, Priene, Magnesia, Cyprus and Didyma. The collection contains sculpture
from archaic to Hellenistic ages as well as artwork from Greek and Roman antiquity:
architecture, sculptures, inscriptions, mosaics, bronzes, jewelry and pottery.
In terms of Islamic artwork it contains artworks from the 8th to the 19th century ranging from
Spain to India, but the main attraction is the Mshatta facade, which originates from an unfinished
early Islamic desert palace located south of Amman in present-day Jordan. It was a gift from the
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Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II to Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany. And lastly there is the
Middle East exhibition which displays objects, found by German archeologists and others, from
the areas of Assyrian, Sumerian and Babylonian culture. Additionally there are historical
buildings, reliefs and lesser cultural objects and jewelry. (back to top)
Museum of Photography
Is in the Charlottenburg district
of Berlin, Germany, and is one of
the
Berlin
State
Museums
administered by the Prussian
Cultural Heritage Foundation.
It
is
located
Zoologischer
next
Garten
to
the
railway
station in the building of a
former landwehr officers' mess,
erected in 1909 according to
plans by Heino Schmieden. The
museum opened in 2004 and also houses the collection of the Helmut Newton Foundation. In
addition to the rotating special exhibits, the permanent exhibit "Helmut Newton's Private
Property" displays some of the late photographers' personal articles. (back to top)
Brücke Museum
The Brücke Museum in Berlin
houses the world's largest collection
of works by Die Brücke ("The
Bridge"),
an
early
20th-century
expressionist movement. Opened in
1967,
it
features
around
400
paintings and sculptures and several
thousand drawings, watercolors and
prints by members of Die Brücke, the
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movement founded in 1905 in Dresden. The collection includes a donation from the painter Karl
Schmidt-Rottluff to the state of Berlin, and a later donation from Erich Heckel featuring key works
from the early years of the movement
The museum is located in an idyllic natural setting in Dahlem, not far from the former studio of
the sculptor Arno Breker. It conducts research into works by the founding members of the
movement and their early 20th century contemporaries. The museum presents both a
continually changing selection of its own works, and frequent special exhibitions of works on
loan. (back to top)
Jewish Museum Berlin
Is one of the largest Jewish
Museums in Europe. In three
buildings, two of which are new
additions specifically built for
the museum by architect Daniel
Libeskind,
two
millennia
of
German-Jewish history are on
display
in
the
permanent
exhibition as well as in various
changing exhibitions. GermanJewish history is documented in
the collections, the library and
the archive, in the computer terminals at the museum's Rafael Roth Learning Center, and is
reflected in the museum's program of events. The museum was opened in 2001 and is one of
Berlin’s most frequented museums (almost 720,000 visitors in 2012).
“Two Millennia of German Jewish History“ presents Germany through the eyes of the Jewish
minority. The exhibition begins with displays on medieval settlements along the Rhine, in
particular in Speyer, Worms and Mayence. The Baroque period is regarded through the lens of
Glückel von Hameln, who left a diary detailing her life as a Jewish business woman in Hamburg.
The intellectual and personal legacies of philosopher Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786) are next;
both figures are flanked by depictions of Jews in court and country. The Age of Emancipation in
the nineteenth century is represented as a time of optimism, achievement and prosperity, though
setbacks and disappointments are displayed as well. German-Jewish soldiers fighting for their
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country in World War I stand at the beginning of the twentieth century. One focus of the
exhibition is Berlin and its development into a European metropolis. The Jews living here as
merchants and entrepreneurs, scientists and artists, were pioneers of the modern age.
In the section on National Socialism, emphasis is placed on the ways in which Jews reacted to the
increasing discrimination against them, such as founding Jewish schools and social services.
After the Shoah, 250 000 survivors waited in “Displaced Persons” camps for the possibility to
emigrate. At the same time, small Jewish communities in West and East were forming. At the
end, two major Nazi trials of the post-war period are considered – the Frankfurt Auschwitz trial
(1963-1965) and the Majdanek trial in Düsseldorf (1975-1981). (back to top)
Bauhaus Archive
Also known as Museum of Design,
in Berlin, it collects art pieces,
items, documents and literature
which relate to the Bauhaus School
(1919–1933), one of the most
influential schools of architecture,
design, and art of the 20th century)
and puts them on public display.
The
collection
documents
the
history of Bauhaus in art, teaching,
architecture
and
design.
The
collection includes teaching materials, workshop models, architectural plans and models,
photographs, documents and a library.
The Bauhaus archive looks after works by Lyonel Feininger, Johannes Itten, Paul Klee, Wassily
Kandinsky, László Moholy-Nagy, Werner Drewes, Gunta Stölzl and Oskar Schlemmer. The
comprehensive graphic collection includes drawings, watercolors and prints. Also, apart from the
permanent exhibition, each year there are about four special exhibitions. There are also lectures,
workshops and discussions, exhibitions in the sculpture yard, readings and concerts. (back to
top)
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Museum für Naturkunde
Is a natural history museum. The museum houses
more than 30 million zoological, paleontological,
and mineralogical specimens, including more than
ten thousand type specimens. It is famous for two
spectacular exhibits: the largest mounted dinosaur
in the world, and an exquisitely preserved specimen
of the earliest known bird, Archaeopteryx.
Established in 1810, it is the largest museum of
natural history in Germany. The museum's mineral
collections date back to the Prussian Academy of
1700. Important historic zoological specimens
include those recovered by the German deep-sea
Valdiva
expedition
(1898–99),
the
German
Southpolar Expedition (1901–03), and the German Sunda Expedition (1929–31). Expeditions to
fossil beds in Tendaguru in former Deutsch Ostafrika (today Tanzania) unearthed rich
paleontological treasures. The collections are so extensive that less than 1 in 5000 specimens is
exhibited, and they attract researchers from around the world. Additional exhibits include a
mineral collection representing 75% of the minerals in the world, and a large meteor collection.
(back to top)
Schloss Britz
The Schloss Britz (Britz castle) is the
former manor-house of the historical
Rittergut (country estate) and village Britz,
now a district of Berlin-Neukölln. Today
it is the headquarters of the cultural
organization Kulturstiftung Schloss Britz
and
includes
authentic
reconstructed
rooms from around 1880. The house is a
museum demonstrating splendid interiors of the Gründerzeit (economic boom) era. The manorial
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park is also well preserved with its mature trees and its 1890s system of trails. In 1997 the park
was honored with the German Gustav-Meyer-Price award for the accuracy and historic
authenticity of the reconstruction. The old farmyard with stables and smithy and the workers'
section, with a chimney of a brewery and some storehouses are preserved, too. The final phase of
reconstruction will provide space and rooms for further cultural institutions of Berlin-Neukölln
in the future.
The 1,8 hectares sized park of the manor stands out as an example of the three hundred
continuous history of the Schloss Britz. In the early 18th century, the park was a typical baroque
park, following the example of the Netherlands which combines elements of a fruit and vegetable
garden with that of a pleasure garden. The central colonnade of lime trees is still present. Like
the manor-house, the park was given its modern appearance with the winding path system,
exotic potted plants and a fountain in the last decade of the 19th century. The mature Ginkgo
tree deserves mention as one of the oldest ones in Germany—the tree was probably planted at
the beginning of the 19th century. The visitor can find also in the park a bust of the former
owner Heinrich Rüdiger von Ilgen. It is a copy of a sculpture which was made in 1902 by Rudolf
Siemering for the Siegesalle (Victory Avenue). (back to top)
** These are the major attractions tourists visit in Berlin, if you would like to see the data and
understand how many tourists have visited these attractions in the past two years, and from
where they came from, just click here !
** If you would like instead to see the simplified version of this document which reports just a
summary of the major attractions described above, click here !
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