December 2001 - Nr. 13
Berlin’s Museum Island Jewel to Reopen Its Doors
TWIG - After a three-and-a-half year renovation project, the jewel of Berlin’s museum island, the Alte Nationalgalerie, has reopened Sunday (December 2). The gallery building was modeled on a Greek temple, replete with pillars, grand staircases and classical ornamentation. Unlike most Athenian structures, the Berlin gallery has a distinctive red sandstone façade, which has now been restored to its original condition, leaving only traces of patina from its 125-year existence. The august building houses one of the world’s most diverse collections of 19th century art. The French Impressionists Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cezanne, and the sculptures of Rodin are showcased alongside German artists such as Max Liebermann, Lovis Corinth, and Friedrich Overback. Two new exhibit halls on the second floor of the gallery are devoted to the master of German Romanticism, Caspar David Friedrich.
The museum island, the world’s largest museum complex, is splayed between the rivers Spree and Kupfergraben in the German capital. The island takes its name from the five museums built there between 1824 and 1930: The Alte Nationalgalerie, the Pergamon Museum, the Bode Museum, the Altes Museum and the Neues Museum. Each was designed with an eye toward the others that surround it, creating a pleasing organic whole. Tragically, about 70% of the island’s structures were destroyed at the end of the Second World War. Since that time, an elaborate reconstruction and modernization effort has been under way to overcome the effects of the war and Cold War division. In 1999, the museum island was named a UNESCO world heritage site, raising the awareness of the depth of culture and history found in Germany.
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