Altes Museum

The Altes Museum, or Old Museum, is a UNESCO World Heritage listed building situated on Museum Island in the historic center of Berlin, Germany. Inaugurated in 1830, it holds the distinction of being the first public museum in Berlin and the oldest museum building in Germany. Designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel under the commission of King Frederick William III of Prussia, the structure is widely regarded as a major work of German Neoclassical architecture. Recognized by UNESCO in 1999 as part of the Museum Island complex, the institution is celebrated for its testimony to the development of the museum as a social and architectural phenomenon. Today, it houses the Antikensammlung and parts of the Munzkabinett.

The idea for a public museum in Berlin emerged around 1797 with the goal of exposing citizens to art hidden away in royal castles, though early plans were stalled by the Napoleonic Wars. The project gained definitive momentum in 1816 following the recovery of numerous artworks that had been appropriated by France for the Louvre. King Frederick William III, who shared the Humboldtian ideal of comprehensive cultural education for the public, acquired the Giustiniani collection in 1815 and the Edward Solly collection in 1821. He subsequently commissioned Schinkel to design a new building for the royal art collection. A royally appointed commission led by Wilhelm von Humboldt decided that the museum would exclusively display High Art, explicitly excluding ethnographic, prehistoric, and Near Eastern artifacts, which were instead housed at Schloss Monbijou. Originally named the Konigliches Museum, the building was renamed the Altes Museum in 1845 following the completion of the adjacent Neues Museum. During the Nazi era, the building and the adjacent Lustgarten served as backdrops for propaganda. It suffered severe damage during World War II, hit by Allied bombs in 1941 and 1943, and nearly entirely burned down on May 8, 1945, due to an exploding munitions truck. From 1951 to 1966, under General Director Ludwig Justi, architects Hans Erich Bogatzky and Theodor Voissen led the reconstruction, making it the first museum on the island to be restored. The rotunda murals were restored in 1982 following Schinkel's designs, though the ornate ceilings and interior columns of the ground floor were not reconstructed. A major renovation saw the museum close in 2009 and reopen in 2015.

Initially, the museum was conceived to house all of Berlin's art collections. The upper floor displayed Old Master paintings, prints, and drawings, while the ground floor housed Classical sculpture from ancient Greece and Rome. Over time, the collections were redistributed across Museum Island. The antiquities collection had been moved elsewhere around 1942, and the building was used as a storage facility until the end of the war. After the post-war restoration, the building primarily hosted temporary exhibitions, including contemporary art from the German Democratic Republic starting in 1966. The classical antiquities returned to the building from a provisional location in Berlin-Charlottenburg in 1998. From August 2005 until October 2009, the upper floor hosted the Egyptian Museum while the Neues Museum was being restored. Today, the permanent collection is organized geographically: the ground floor presents the Greek antiquities collection, while the upper floor houses the Etruscan and Roman collections, alongside an exhibition of ancient coins from the Munzkabinett.

Built between 1825 and 1830, the Altes Museum follows the design canon of Greek antiquity, embodying the Enlightenment idea of the museum as an educational temple for the bourgeoisie. The two-story building sits on a base measuring 87 meters long and 55 meters wide, consisting of a flat-roofed cubic structure preceded by a portico with 18 fluted Ionic columns in monumental order. The columns and the four pillars of the stair hall are constructed of Cotta and Reinhardtsdorf sandstone from Saxony, with Posta sandstone used for the base. Eighteen sandstone eagles sit on the entablature above the columns. The interior features a rotunda inspired by the Pantheon in Rome, which was intentionally concealed from the exterior so as not to compete with the dome of the neighboring Berlin Cathedral. Schinkel integrated the building into an architectural ensemble around the Lustgarten, where the Stadtschloss to the south symbolized worldly power, the Zeughaus to the west represented military might, and the Berliner Dom to the east embodied divine authority, leaving the museum to the north as a symbol of science and art. Schinkel, who had studied major museums in London and Paris, also influenced Peter Joseph Lenné's renovation of the Lustgarten to create a harmonious setting. Complicated foundation work was required due to a former connecting canal, resulting in roughly 3,000 pine wood piles being driven into the ground. The original frescoes by Schinkel and Peter Cornelius in the vestibule and portico were largely lost during the war, and the former connection to the Neues Museum was removed during reconstruction, to be replaced by a planned underground passageway connecting all Museum Island institutions.

The Altes Museum is located in the Mitte district of Berlin on Museum Island, situated north of the Lustgarten. It is surrounded by significant historical architecture, including the Berlin Cathedral to the east, the reconstructed Berlin Palace to the south, and the Zeughaus to the west. The institution operates under the Berlin State Museums and maintains an active public role, recording approximately 215,000 visitors in 2023. Its official website is hosted by the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, providing current information on access and exhibitions.