Berlin's Museum Island: One of Berlin Top Tourist Attractions

Berlin's Museum Island is a complex of buildings consisting of five individual museums of remarkable artistic importance, located in the heart of the city, illustrating the evolution of modern museum design from 1824 to 1930.

The Pergamon Museum (Pergamonmuseum), one of the 5 museums in Berlin's Museum Island

The Spree Island, today known as Museum Island, began its development with the creation of a pleasure garden (Lutzgarten) in the 16th century. But its current importance began with the construction of the Altes Museum, according to the design of Karl Friedrich Schinkel in 1824-1828. In 1841 Friedrich August Stüler, court architect to Friedrich-Wilhelm IV, drew up a plan to convert the part behind the museum into "a sanctuary for the arts and sciences". The first element of this plan was the construction of the Neues Museum. This was followed in 1866 by the construction of the Nationalgalerie by Johann Heinrich Strack. Then, between 1897 and 1904, the Kaiser-Friederich Museum (today's Bodemuseum) was built. The plan was completed between 1909 and 1930 with the construction of the Pergamon Museum by Alfred Messel.

The Altes Museum (Old Museum) is a two-story structure, rectangular in plan, in which the exhibition rooms are organized around two inner courtyards and a two-story rotunda topped by a lantern. Its architecture includes a high portico supported by 18 sandstone Ionic columns and two pilasters forming an angle. It is accessed by a staircase of seven flights.

The Neues Museum (New Museum) has a similar layout to the Altes Museum but the rotunda was replaced by a monumental main staircase. Part of the decorative structures were destroyed during World War II. The sobriety of its exterior contrasts markedly with the rich interior decoration. The decoration of the second inner courtyard with its monumental frieze illustrating the destruction of Pompeii has remained intact.

The Nationalgalerie (National Gallery) is formed by a high base of carved stones, in the form of blocks and with rectangular windows, crowned with an endo dipterous Corinthian temple with an open portico. Behind the columns, rectangular windows also open in the outer wall. The rear part is in the form of a semicircular bowl. The rectangular four-story building is richly decorated with symbolic imagery in the form of sculptures, reliefs, and paintings.

Bode Museum's Entrance Hall - Museum Island (Berlin)

The Bode Museum is a neo-baroque structure that occupies a dominant position at the northwest end of the island. Clad in sandstone, it rises on two levels, linked by Corinthian pilasters and crowned by a balustrade. 

The rounded facade of the entrance is decorated with columns and open arches. The impressive entrance staircase leads to a central section and the two side wings. The main wall room, called the Basilica, has the appearance of the interior of a Renaissance church.

The Pergamon Museum (Pergamon Museum) is a three-wing building built to display the works of art of antiquity after the excavations carried out by the Germans in Pergamon and other Greek and Mesopotamian sites. Of sober style, its central body, and its lateral wings, without windows, are structured with gigantic flat pilasters and abrupt pediments. It has archaic features such as the Doric half-columns and the degraded central superstructure.