Altes Museum

• 1. Royal Commission And Planning

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  King Frederick William III of Prussia issued a directive in the early nineteenth century to create a public museum for the bourgeoisie. This growing class had become increasingly self-aware and began to embrace new ideas regarding the relationship between itself and art. The concepts that art should be open to the public and that citizens should have access to comprehensive cultural education pervaded society. Schinkel received this charge from the King to plan a public museum for the royal art collection. Friedrich Wilhelm IV, then crown prince, influenced these plans with his desire for a building heavily influenced by Classical antiquity. He even sent Schinkel a pencil sketch of a large hall adorned with a classical portico.

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• 2. Schinkels Neoclassical Design

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  The front facing the Lustgarten features eighteen Ionic columns arranged by the garden itself. A simple columned hall in grand style gave the building character proportionate to the importance of the location. The arrangement of these columns was effected by the Lustgarten. The portico was designed with a function to give the museum building an exterior befitting its site. Monuments could be placed within this structure. The Königliches Museum stood as a symbol for science and art rather than worldly power or military might. It represented the torchbearer: the self-aware bourgeoisie. Peter Joseph Lenné's renovation of the Lustgarten coincided with the construction of the museum. This resulted in a harmonized and integrated ensemble surrounding the pleasure garden.

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• 3. Evolution Of Museum Island

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  King Friedrich Wilhelm IV announced in 1841 that the entire northern part of the Spree Island would become a sanctuary for art and science. In 1845, the completion of the Neues Museum caused the Königliches Museum to be renamed the Altes Museum. This name holds to this day. Friedrich August Stüler completed the Neues Museum in 1855. Johann Heinrich Strack built the Nationalgalerie in 1876. Ernst von Ihne constructed the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum after plans by Stüler in 1904. Alfred Messel and Ludwig Hoffmann finished the Pergamonmuseum in 1930. Julius Carl Raschdorff reconstructed the Berliner Dom between 1894 and 1905 into a neo-Renaissance cathedral. This new cathedral significantly disrupted the classical ensemble due to its larger dimensions.

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• 4. War Damage And Postwar Restoration

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  Close to the end of Second World War, a tank truck exploded in front of the building. The frescoes designed by Schinkel and Peter Cornelius were largely lost during this event. Under General Director Ludwig Justi, the building became the first museum of Museum Island to undergo reconstruction. Hans Erich Bogatzky and Theodor Voissen carried out restoration work from 1951 to 1966. The murals of the rotunda were restored in 1982 following Schinkel's designs. Neither the ornate ceilings of the ground floor exhibition rooms nor the pairs of columns under the girders were reconstructed. An underground passageway connecting all museums is planned as part of the Museumsinsel 2015 renovations instead of rebuilding the former connection to the Neues Museum.

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• 5. Collection Shifts And Current Holdings

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  The royally appointed commission decided to display only High Art in the proposed building. Old Master paintings and prints and drawings occupied the upper floor while Classical sculpture from ancient Greece and Rome filled the ground floor. These artifacts excluded ethnography, prehistory, and excavated treasures from Assyria or Persia. Such items were primarily housed in Schloss Monbijou since 1904, the museum has solely housed the Antikensammlung. Since 1998, the Collection of Classical Antiquities displays its Greek collection including the treasury on the ground floor. Special exhibitions are displayed on the second floor of the museum today.

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