Museum Island (German: Museumsinsel)
is the name of the northern half of an island in the Spree river in the central Mitte district of Berlin, Germany, the site of the old city of Cölln. It is so called for the complex of five internationally significant museums, all part of the Berlin State Museums, that occupy the island's northern part:
The Altes Museum (Old Museum)
The architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel designed a neoclassical building for Altes Museum (Old Museum) with a rotunda, dome and portico in 1830. It was thus the first public museum in Prussia. After being destroyed in the war and being rebuilt in the 1960s, the Altes Museum is undergoing renovation work. The museum's permanent exhibition entitled “New Antiquity in the Old Museum" (collection of classical antiquities and gold treasury) presents Greek and Roman art and sculptures.
The Neues Museum (New Museum)
In 1841, Friedrich August Stüler started building the Neues Museum (New Museum). He used steam power and industrially fabricated support structures, which was a structural engineering sensation at the time. During the war, the museum was destroyed, and laid in ruins until 1999. Only then did the reconstruction work begin, which ended up lasting for ten years. Since reopening in 2009, the Egyptian Museum and the Museum of Prehistory and Early History have once again found a place to display their treasures in the museum. The showpiece of the New Museum is the bust of Nefertiti.
The Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery)
Like an ancient temple, the museum Alte Nationalgalerie along with its stairway rises above the Museum Island. The model that inspired the architect Friedrich August Stiller was the Acropolis of Athens. It was the first museum to be renovated here and has been open to the public since 2001. Built between 1867 and 1876 the museum Alte Nationalgalerie features works of Classicism, Romanticism, the Biedermeier era, Impressionism and early Modernism.
· The Bode Museum
After six years of restoration work, the Bode Museum reopened in 2006. The museum houses an extensive collection of sculptures and treasures of the Museum of Byzantine Art and the Numismatic Collection. In the summer, the shore on the other side is a popular place for young people to meet each other and hang out.
· The Pergamon Museum
The three-winged Pergamonmuseum by Alfred Messel has about one million visitors per year and thus is the most visited museum in Berlin.Currently, the Pergamon Museum is home to the Antikensammlung including the famous Pergamon Altar, the Vorderasiatisches Museum and the Museum für Islamische Kunst. Parts of the building are closed for renovation until 2025.
Jewish Museum
The Jewish Museum Berlin (Jüdisches 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. German-Jewish 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.
Museum für Naturkunde
The Museum für Naturkunde, occasionally called the Naturkundemuseum or Humboldt-Museum for short, (officially: Museum für Naturkunde – Leibniz-Institut für Evolutions- und Biodiversitätsforschung), is a natural history museum in Berlin, Germany. 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.
German Museum of Technology
Deutsches Technikmuseum Berlin (German Museum of Technology) in Berlin, Germany is a museum of science and technology, and exhibits a large collection of historical technical artifacts. The museum's main emphasis originally was on rail transport, but today it also features exhibits of various sorts of industrial technology. In 2003, it opened both maritime and aviation exhibition halls in a newly built extension. The museum also contains a science center called Spectrum.
Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer
Situated at the historic site on Bernauer Strasse, the Berlin Wall Memorial extends along 1.4 kilometres the last piece of Berlin Wall with the preserved grounds behind it and is thus able to convey an impression of how the border fortifications developed until the end of the 1980s. The events that took place here together with the preserved historical remains and traces of border obstacles on display help to make the history of Germany's division comprehensible to visitors. The memorial includes the monument, the Berlin Wall Documentation Centre and the Chapel of Reconciliation, built on the former death strip at the site of the Reconciliation Church that was blown up by East German border troops in 1985. Guided tours in German, English, Spanish, French and Italian are available at the memorial.
Topography of Terror
Between 1933 and 1945, the centres of national-socialist terror, namely the Gestapo with its own prison, the SS headquarters, the SS Security Service (SD) and the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (Main Office for State Security) were located on the site that today hosts the exhibition “Topography of Terror”, next to the Martin-Gropius building and not far from the Potsdamer Platz.
This is where the new exhibition “Topography of Terror” can also be seen. It documents the history of the institutions of terror located in the immediate vicinity of the Nazi government district and of the crimes originating from there. A second permanent exhibition focuses on the role of Berlin as capital of the "Third Reich" (Spiring until Autumn).
One of the few original remainders of the Berlin Wall is also part of the site. With more than 800,000 visitors a year, “Topography of Terror” is one of the most frequented memorial sites and museums in Berlin.
Sachsenhausen concentration camp / Gedenkstätte Sachsenhausen
Sachsenhausen or Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg was a Nazi concentration camp in Oranienburg, Germany, (near Berlin) used primarily for political prisoners from 1936 to the end of the Third Reich in May 1945. After World War II, when Oranienburg was in the Soviet Occupation Zone, the structure was used as an NKVD special camp until 1950 (See NKVD special camp Nr. 7). The remaining buildings and grounds are now open to the public as a museum.
Victory Column / Siegessäule
The Victory Column, from Sieg ‘victory’ + Säule ‘column’) is a monument in Berlin, Germany. Designed by Heinrich Strack, after 1864 to commemorate the Prussian victory in the Danish-Prussian War, by the time it was inaugurated on 2 September 1873, Prussia had also defeated Austria in the Austro-Prussian War (1866) and France in the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), giving the statue a new purpose. Different from the original plans, these later victories in the so-called unification wars inspired the addition of the bronze sculpture of Victoria, 8.3 metres (27 ft) high and weighing 35 tonnes, designed by Friedrich Drake. Berliners have given the statue the nickname Goldelse, meaning something like "Golden Lizzy".
The Victory Column is a major tourist attraction in the city of Berlin. Its viewing platform, for which a ticket is required, offers a view over Berlin.
Potsdam
Potsdam is the capital of Brandenburg and borders Berlin. The town has population of approx. 159,000. It is widely known for its castles and landscape as a World Heritage Site. Potsdam is more than 1000 years old. Many historic buildings are under re-construction after World War II and the period of the GDR.
For most of its recent history Potsdam has not been accessible from Berlin. The last station before the former GDR was Wannsee. Many of the buildings that are visible today have been reconstructed after the bombings of the Second World War and after the lax care of the East German Government. The city as we see it today is the work of five architects (After the Great Elector said: "Das ganze Eyland muß ein Paradies werden" (The whole island must become a paradise)): Peter Joseph Lenné, Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff, Carl Phillipp Christian von Gontard, Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Friedrich Ludwig Persius, and of course King Frederick the Great and Emperor Wilhelm II.
It is important to realize that most of the tourist attractions in the city are UNESCO World Heritage sites - these are:
· Sanssouci Park and the Crown estate of Bornstedt
· The New Garden (including the Pfingstberg and the Russian colony of Alxandrowka)
· Babelsberg Park
· Sacrow Park