Location of Museum Island (in red) on Spree Island
Museum Island
Location of Museum Island in Germany
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Museum Island
Museum Island (Berlin)
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TheMuseum Island (German:Museumsinsel,pronounced[muˈzeːʊmsˌɪnzl̩]ⓘ) is amuseum complex on the northern part ofSpree Island in thehistoric heart ofBerlin, Germany. It is one of the capital's most visited sights and one of the most important museum sites inEurope. Originally built from 1830 to 1930, initially by order of thePrussian Kings, according to plans by five architects, the Museum Island was designated aUNESCOWorld 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 theAltes Museum, theNeues Museum, theAlte Nationalgalerie, theBode-Museum and thePergamon Museum.[1] As the Museum Island designation includes all of Spree Island north of the Karl Liebknecht Boulevard, the historicBerlin Cathedral is also located there, next to the openLustgarten park. To the south ofLiebknecht Boulevard, the reconstructedBerlin Palace houses theHumboldt Forum museum and opened in 2020. Also adjacent, across the west branch of the Spree is theGerman Historical Museum. SinceGerman reunification, the Museum Island has been rebuilt and extended according to a master plan.[2] In 2019, a new visitor center and art gallery, theJames Simon Gallery (by a sixth architect), was opened within the Museum Island heritage site.
The Museum Island is so-called for the complex of internationally significantmuseums, all part of theBerlin State Museums, that occupy the Spree island's northern part. In 1999, the museum complex was added to theUNESCO list ofWorld Heritage Sites because of its unique testimony to the evolution of museums as a social and cultural phenomena and the corresponding development of museum architecture.[1]
TheAltes Museum (Old Museum) named as theKönigliches Museum when it was built on 3 August 1830, until it was renamed in 1841. The museum was completed on the orders ofKarl Friedrich Schinkel.
TheAlte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery) completed in 1876, also according to designs byFriedrich August Stüler, to host a collection of 19th-century art donated by banker Joachim H. W. Wagener
TheBode Museum on the island's northern tip, opened in 1904 and then calledKaiser-Friedrich-Museum. It exhibits the sculpture collections and late Antique and Byzantine art.
ThePergamon Museum, constructed from 1910 to 1930, contains multiple reconstructed immense and historically significant buildings such as thePergamon Altar and theIshtar Gate of Babylon.
TheBerliner Dom while not itself a museum is an historically important church, which contains the dynastic crypt of theHouse of Hohenzollern
TheJames Simon Gallery, visitors center, opened 2019, was erected on the site of the former 19th century "Packhof" (service building wearhouse) a Schinkel designed structure which had been demolished in 1938.
Nearby:
TheHumboldt Forum opened in late 2020 in the reconstructedBerlin Palace opposite the Berliner Dom and Lustgarten park, and incorporated theEthnological Museum of Berlin and theMuseum of Asian Art; both are successor institutions of the Ancient Prussian Art Chamber, which was also located in the Berlin Palace and which was established in the mid 16th century. In late 2022, the opening of the eastern wing, the last section of the Humboldt Forum museum, meant the Humboldt Forum museum was finally completed.[3]
A first exhibition hall was erected in 1797 at the suggestion of the archaeologistAloys Hirt. In 1822, Schinkel designed the plans for the Altes Museum to house the royalAntikensammlung, the arrangement of the collection was overseen byWilhelm von Humboldt. The island, originally a residential area, was dedicated to "art and science" by KingFrederick William IV of Prussia in 1841. Further extended under succeedingPrussian kings, the museum's collections of art and archeology were turned into a public foundation after 1918. They are today maintained by theBerlin State Museums branch of thePrussian Cultural Heritage Foundation.
Museum Island with Pergamon and Bode Museum, 1951
Museum Island further comprises theLustgarten park and theBerlin Cathedral. Between the Bode and Pergamon Museums it is crossed by theStadtbahn railway viaduct. The adjacent territory to the south is the site of the former royal and imperialBerlin Palace and thePalace of the Republic.
The Prussian collections became separated during the Cold War during the division of the city, but were reunited afterGerman reunification, with the exception of some art andartifacts removed after World War II byAllied troops. These include thePriam's Treasure, also calledthe gold ofTroy, excavated byHeinrich Schliemann in 1873, then smuggled out of Turkey to Berlin and smuggled out of Germany to Moscow. Today it is kept at thePushkin Museum inMoscow.[4]
As for the city's major museums, it took much of the 1990s for a consensus to emerge that Museum Island's buildings should be restored and modernized, with General Director Wolf-Dieter Dube's cautious plan for their use finally approved in January 1999. Then, six months later, Peter-Klaus Schuster took over and set in motion a far more ambitious program intended to turn Museum Island into aLouvre on the Spree.[5] The federal government pledged $20 million a year through 2010 for projects to enhance Berlin's prestige andUNESCO declared the island aWorld Heritage Site.[6]
The contents of the museums were decided on as follows: The Pergamon, with the Greek altar that gives it its name, retained much of its collection and was defined as a museum of ancient architecture. The Neues Museum presented archaeological objects as well as Egyptian and Etruscan sculptures, including the renowned bust ofQueen Nefertiti. The Altes Museum, the oldest on the island, displayed Greek and Roman art objects on its first floor and hold exhibitions on its second floor. The Bode Museum's paintings went from Late Byzantine to 1800. And, as now, the Alte Nationalgalerie will cover the 19th century.[5] Once this process is completed, perhaps by 2020, the Gemäldegalerie's painting collection will be transferred to the Bode, and a new annex, and Museum Island will present all art from the ancient civilizations to 1900.[7] TheJames Simon Gallery, a $157 million visitors' center designed by the British architectDavid Chipperfield, completed construction in 2019 and is located beside the Neues Museum. It is linked to the Neues, Altes, Pergamon and Bode Museums by an underground passageway decorated with archaeological objects.[7]
Once the Museum Island Master Plan is completed, the so-called Archaeological Promenade will connect four of the five museums on the Museum Island. The Promenade will begin at the Old Museum in the south, lead through the New Museum and the Pergamon Museum and end at the Bode Museum, located at the northern tip of the Island. Before World War II, these museums were connected by bridge passages above ground; they were destroyed due to the effects of the war. There have never been plans to rebuild them; instead, the central courts of individual museums will be lowered, which has already been done in the Bode Museum and in the New Museum. They will be connected by subterranean galleries. In a way, this archaeological promenade can be regarded as the sixth museum in the Island, because it is devised not only as a connecting corridor but also as a strung-out exhibition room for interdisciplinary presentations. The Archaeological Promenade may be characterized as a cross-total of the collections that are shown separately (in accordance with cultural regions, epochs, and art genres) in the individual museums of the Island. The Archaeological Promenade will address multi-focus topics that have occupied the human mind irrespective of time and cultural region, be it a question of life after death or issues of beauty and other topics.[8]
The southern section of the island, south of Gertraudenstraße, is commonly referred to asFischerinsel (Fisher Island) and is the site of a high-rise apartment development built when Mitte was part ofEast Berlin.
^ab"Museumsinsel (Museum Island), Berlin".UNESCO World Heritage Centre. United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization.Archived from the original on 6 May 2021. Retrieved20 July 2022.
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