Berlin's Restored Neues Museum Handed Over to City Officials
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- The new Neues Museum
- (© picture-alliance/dpa)
City officials took charge of Berlin's historic Neues Museum on March 5 after more than a decade of painstaking restoration work by British architect David Chipperfield.
The renovation of the 1855 building, which was badly damaged in World War II air raids, is the latest step in a marathon project to revive the German capital's neoclassical Museum Island complex.
When it opens to the public on October 16, the Neues Museum will house Berlin's famous Egyptian collection, including the bust of Queen Nefertiti, as it did before the war.
"I reluctantly hand over the keys after 11 years of hard work," said Chipperfield, who won the 233 million euro ($290 million) commission to remodel the museum in 1997.
The building, which had remained derelict since the war, is the third of the five museums to have been restored to its former glory on the Museum Island, a UNESCO cultural heritage site.
The Alte Nationalgalerie was renovated in 2001 and work on the Bode Museum was completed five years later. The Pergamon Museum and the Altes Museum are due to be restored by 2026.
German Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee said the government had invested 1 billion euros in the Museum Island in what he called the biggest construction project in the country.
The Neues Museum was designed by Friedrich August Stüler, a disciple of Prussian architect Karl-Friedrich Schinkel, to expand the adjoining Altes Museum.
Built between 1843 and 1855, it was one of the most ambitious building projects in Prussia when it opened in 1859.
Plans to reconstruct the museum, severely damaged by bombing in 1943 and 1945, did not emerge until the 1980s, when a new foundation was finally laid for the building, characterized by a great staircase hall winding its way through all three storeys of the building.
Related Links:
Restoration of the Neues Museum
For Berlin Museum, a Modern Makeover That Doesn’t Deny the Wounds of War - The New York Times
