The Neues Museum on Berlin's Museum Island reopens
Press release from 10/15/2009
With a ceremony attended by Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel, Governing Mayor Klaus Wowereit and Minister of State for Culture Bernd Neumann, the Neues Museum reopens its doors tomorrow for the first time in seventy years. From 17 October, the public is invited to visit the building, which was a war ruin for decades and has now been splendidly restored. restored to its former splendour.
Including the initial furnishings (12 million euros), the costs for the restoration of the Neues Museum totalled around 212 million euros, which were borne by the federal government. The Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection and the Museum of Prehistory and Early History share a total of around 8,000 square metres of exhibition space on four levels, supplemented by objects from the Collection of Classical Antiquities. Both the Egyptian and the prehistoric and protohistoric collections now have around three times as much space as at their previous exhibition venues. Together with the Collection of Classical Antiquities, they will display almost 9,000 objects in the Neues Museum, including the famous bust of Nefertiti.
The oldest object in the Neues Museum is a 700,000-year-old Palaeolithic hand axe, one of around 5700 objects on display at the Museum of Prehistory and Early History. The most recent object also comes from this collection: a piece of barbed wire from the Berlin Wall. Among the outstanding artefacts in the collection are the Bronze Age "gold hat" and the skulls of the Neanderthal man from Le Moustier and the man from Combe Capelle. The world-famous Troy collection, which Heinrich Schliemann donated to the Berlin museums and whose gold treasure was transported from Berlin as spoils of war by the Red Army and is still kept in Moscow today, is also part of the exhibition.
The highlights of the Egyptian Museum are the "Green Head", three newly restored sacrificial chambers from the Old Kingdom and the Amarna Collection, which came to Berlin in 1913 on the basis of an official division of finds and thanks to the patron James Simon. It also includes the famous bust of Nefertiti. Apart from a bust by Simon, it is the only object in the North Dome Hall and is presented in a four metre high display case. The Egyptian Museum has around 150 showcases of various sizes at
with over 2500 exhibits. The Museum of Prehistory and Early History displays its artefacts in a total of 160 showcases.
The Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection was housed in the eastern Stüler Building in Charlottenburg from 1967 to 2005. After reunification, the Egyptian collection of the East Berlin
museums, which had previously been housed in the Bode Museum, also moved there. After a stopover at the Altes Museum, the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection has now returned to its original home, where the collection was first exhibited in 1850. The move to the Neues Museum is also a "homecoming" for the Museum of Pre- and
Early History: the "Collection of Nordic Antiquities" was opened to the public in the Vaterländischer Saal in 1855. From 1958, the Museum of Prehistory and Early History in the western part of Berlin was housed in the Langhansbau in Charlottenburg, where the collections previously managed by the East Berlin Museum of Prehistory and Early History were also integrated after reunification.
The Neues Museum was built from 1843 by Friedrich August Stüler, after Frederick William IV had decided in a cabinet decree of 1841 to transform "the entire Spree Island behind the museum into a free place for art and science". The collections moved in from 1850 until the building was finally opened in 1859. The Neues Museum was badly damaged by bombing during the Second World War and parts of it were completely destroyed. The ruins remained exposed to the wind and weather for decades. Shortly before German reunification, which also resulted in the reunification of the former Prussian collections, the GDR decided to renovate the building.
From 2003, the building was restored according to plans by David Chipperfield Architects, and the keys were ceremoniously handed over on 5 March 2009. The concept of "supplementary restoration" had been the subject of intense and controversial public debate until the building was handed over. In the end, the correct handling of the historically preserved parts and the careful addition of destroyed elements in a contemporary architectural language met with widespread approval and enthusiasm. The surviving architecture itself was preserved like an archaeological object and thus provides an excellent stage for the archaeological collections.
A few days ago, David Chipperfield Architects and the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation were awarded the BDA Prize Berlin 2009 for the reconstruction of the Neues Museum. Among other things, the citation stated that they had succeeded in creating "a
spatial atmosphere that is appropriate to the location and the task, as it makes it possible to experience the fourth dimension, time, in addition to its spatial qualities."
All five museums on the Museum Island are now accessible again for the first time since they were closed due to the war in 1939. The renovated Alte Nationalgalerie reopened in 2001 and the rebuilt Bode Museum in 2006. The remodelling and extension of the Pergamon Museum is currently being prepared (15-year construction period from 2013), and the renovation of the Altes Museum is also on the agenda. The James Simon Gallery will be built as the central entrance building by 2013.
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