Neues Museum

The Neues Museum on Berlin's Museum Island has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage since 1999, and its reconstruction by David Chipperfield was awarded the EU Prize for Contemporary Architecture in 2011. Inside are the bust of Nefertiti and the 74-centimeter-tall Berlin Gold Hat from the Late Bronze Age, hammered from a seamless sheet.

Sixty Years a Ruin, Then an Award-Winning Reconstruction

The Neues Museum is located on Bodestraße on Museum Island, the ensemble that UNESCO inscribed on the World Heritage list in 1999 under criteria two and four. It was built according to plans by Friedrich August Stüler, the foundation stone was laid on April 6, 1843, and it opened in 1855. During World War II, the building was hit harder than any other on the island: parts of the building collapsed, the staircase was completely destroyed, and afterward, the ruin stood for over sixty years. The decision for reconstruction was made in 1985, emergency stabilization began in 1989, and the master plan followed in 1999. From 2000 to 2009, David Chipperfield Architects, together with restoration architect Julian Harrap, rebuilt the building according to a principle that has set an international precedent: lost parts were not copied but rather modernly supplemented, and traces of war remained visible. The cost was around 200 million Euros, with a budget of 233 million. In 2011, the building received the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture, the Mies van der Rohe Award.

Nefertiti, a Gold Hat, and Schliemann’s Trojan Finds

The Neues Museum unites two major collections under one roof: the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection and the Museum of Prehistory and Early History. The most famous piece is the bust of Nefertiti, 49 by 24.5 by 35 centimeters, made of painted limestone with stucco, black beeswax, and rock crystal, dated to the years 1351 to 1334 BC. Ludwig Borchardt found it in Amarna in 1912, and in 1920 it came to the museum as a gift from James Simon. Almost equally spectacular is the Berlin Gold Hat: 74 centimeters high, hammered and embossed from a single seamless gold sheet, created between 1000 and 800 BC. Additionally, there is the Neanderthal skull from Le Moustier with the facial reconstruction of an eleven-year-old boy, and Heinrich Schliemann’s collection of Trojan antiquities. The Papyrus Collection is the largest group of items in the museum numerically and contains original manuscripts of Homer’s Iliad and two complete versions of the Story of Sinuhe. The visitor entrance is in the James-Simon-Galerie, where the cloakroom is also located; access via the Colonnade Courtyard only works with a valid ticket.