TheMuseum Island (German:Museuminsel) is a collection of museums in the northern part of the Spree Island in Berlin. It is aUNESCOWorld Heritage Site. It includes five famous museums: theAltes Museum, theNeues Museum, theAlte Nationalgalerie, theBode-Museum, and thePergamonmuseum. The complex also consists of the Berliner Dom and Lustgarten. Different architects built the museums between 1830 and 1930. The Museums are part of theStaatliche Museen zu Berlin (SMB), (German: National Museums of Berlin).
KingFrederick William IV of Prussia set aside the island as an " open space for art and science" in 1841. The original plan was to have a Königlisches Museum be several buildings surrounding aLustgarten. The plan was not to have one museum contain several genres and cultural regions. Instead, the island would have separate museum buildings for different regions and epochs. This layout was different than other museums like theLouvre or theBritish Museum.[1]
The development of the museums followed a particle mission of education. The educatedsocial class of the 19th century (Bildungsbürgertum) called for openly accessible art. The educator and philosopherWilhelm von Humboldt, who supported public education, was also in charge of developing the museums. Thus, the museums were created to be for the public. The Altes Museum would become Prussia's first public museum.[2]
In the 1870s, the island began to be called Museum Island. The Prussians tried to build museums comparable to models in Paris and London. Following these ideas, an art conference in 1880 determined that galleries should only display high art forms in museums.
During the Third Reich, the Nazis planned to expand the Museum Island. They wanted to add more buildings and had plans for the Germanic Museum and Museum of the 19th Century. The war prevented these plans. Several of the museums were damaged during World War 2. Bombings destroyed over 70% of the museums during the war. However, much of the art was stored in bomb shelters.
Significant restoration of the museums took place afterGerman reunification in the 1990s. The German government has spent about $1 billion on renovations on the Museum Island.[3] In the late 1990s, a masterplan for the Museum Island was proposed. It includes renovations and modernization of buldings and tries to connect all the museums. There will be a new visitor center building.
In 1999, the island became a UNESCO World heritage site.
↑Parzinger, Herman, Remodelling shared heritage and collections access: The Museum Island constellation and Humboldt Forum project in Berlin, Museums, Ethics and Cultural Heritage. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis, 2016, p. 141-161
↑Sheehan, James J. (2000): Museums in the German Art World. From the End of the Old Regime to the Rise of Modernism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. 170.
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