Hamburger Bahnhof - Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart

From a Terminal Station in 1846 to the Nationalgalerie’s Largest Venue

The Hamburger Bahnhof at Invalidenstraße 50 is the only museum on this list that began as a railway station. In December 1846, the terminal station for the line from Berlin to Hamburg opened here, with the late-classical reception building designed by Friedrich Neuhaus. Train operations ceased as early as 1884, after which the premises served for about two decades as apartments and administration, until their conversion into an exhibition house followed in 1904: From then on, it housed the Transport and Building Museum, the predecessor of today’s German Museum of Technology. Josef Paul Kleihues transformed the building into a museum for contemporary art, reopening on November 3, 1996. Today, with over 10,000 square meters of exhibition space, the Hamburger Bahnhof is the largest venue of the Nationalgalerie, larger than the Alte Nationalgalerie, Neue Nationalgalerie, Museum Berggruen, and Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg. The museum had initially started with 7,000 square meters. Around 445,000 people visited in 2025, a significant increase compared to previous years. The largest single donation received by the Nationalgalerie since the legacy of Joachim Heinrich Wilhelm Wagener in 1861 also went to this house.

Marx, Flick, Marzona: three collections and the saved Rieckhallen

The foundation was laid in 1996 by the Marx Collection, an indefinite loan focusing on Beuys, Kiefer, Rauschenberg, Twombly, and Warhol. From it come Robert Rauschenberg’s Pink Door from 1954, as well as Andy Warhol’s Double Elvis from 1963 and Mao from 1973, which serves as the museum’s emblem, plus Joseph Beuys’ Tram Stop from 1976. In 2004, the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection was added as a loan with over 1,500 works; the loan agreement ended in 2021, with 268 works being donated and belonging to the Nationalgalerie ever since. The Marzona Collection contributes over 600 works by approximately 150 artists, including Concept Art, Land Art, Minimal Art, and Arte Povera from 1965 to 1978. However, the most important news in recent years concerns the Rieckhallen: The State of Berlin purchased the approximately 3,000 square meter hall in 2022, in 2023, the building’s protected monument status was extended to it, and since September 6, 2024, exhibitions are once again being held there. However, access to the Rieckhallen is currently not barrier-free; assistance is available at the information desk at the ticket counter.