Museum Tour
Museum Island
Museumsinsel
The Museum Island is listed as one of UNESCO's world cultural heritage sites in 1999. The ensemble comprises five individual museums, the construction of which spanned a period of one hundred years - from 1830 (Old Museum) to 1930 (Pergamon Museum).
After German reunification, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation assumed responsibility for the museums. Comprehensive restoration work was deemed necessary to prevent further disintegration of the buildings. The Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning took on the role of client in a general refurbishment and extension programme estimated to last 20 years. The Museum Island is to be the key location for a concept developed by the Berlin State Museums, in which works of art illustrating the history of mankind over a period of 6,000 years will be on display.
The Bode Museumwhich re-opended in 2006 currently houses the Museum for Byzantine Art, the Sculpture and Numismatic Collection, while the Pergamon Museum accommodates the three independent collections - the Museum of Islamic Art, the Museum of Near Eastern Antiquities and the Museum of Antiquities. The New Museumwas refurbished until 2009, within the framework of the Masterplan for Berlin's Museum Island. Since its re-opening in October 2009 it contains the Agyptian Museum and part of the Museum of Prehistory and Early History.
The Old National Gallery shows sculpture collections and paintings of the 19th. century.
An "Archaeological Promenade", created at the level still accommodating the depot and administrative offices today, will form a link between the archeological museums (Bode Museum, the Pergamon Museum, the New Museum and the Old Museum) and channel the flow of expected visitors. A reorganisation and joint presentation of the collections of all museums is planned within the framework of the Masterplan for Berlin's Museum Island. A new entrance building for the Museum Island, the James-Simon-Galerie will serve as central entry point after the planned opening in 2013. The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation anticipates an annual attendance of four million visitors when restoration work has been completed. By then, the mammoth project will have swallowed one point five billion Euros.
The open spaces at Museum Island will be designed to plans by the Berlin landscape architects Levin Monsigny, who won the open competition in 2001. In accordance the western core area of the Museum Island will become an urban space with carefully bordered edges and calm stone surfaces, while in the eastern area along the River Spree, the green sequence of the Lustgarten, the cathedral garden and the colonnades will present a waterfront with romantic garden images. Unified natural stone furniture and a lighting concept will connect the two sides. Thus the stone flooring of the underground sections of the Archeological Promenade will be marked with transparent points of light and all five buildings individually floodlit with soft lighting.
The colonnades have been restored since 2010 after three years of restauration. They will be extended behind the Old National Gallery in the years to come.
Further information:
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Images:
Landesarchiv Berlin (2)
Landesarchiv Berlin / Klaus Lehnartz
Partner für Berlin / FTB-Werbefotografie
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