The Berlin State Museums (german: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) are a group of institutions in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, comprising seventeen museums in five clusters, several research institutes, libraries, and supporting facilities. They are overseen by the

Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (german: Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz; SPK) is a German federal government body that oversees 27 museums and cultural organizations in and around Berlin, Germany. Its purview includes all of Berlin's ...

and funded by the German federal government in collaboration with Germany's federal states. The central complex on

Museum Island The Museum Island (german: Museumsinsel) is a museum complex on the northern part of the Spree Island in the historic heart of Berlin. It is one of the most visited sights of Germany's capital and one of the most important museum sites in Europ ...

was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites in 1999. By 2007, the Berlin State Museums had grown into the largest complex of museums in Europe. The museum was originally founded by King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia in 1823 as the Königliche Museen (in English, Royal Museums). The director-general of the Berlin State Museums is

Michael Eissenhauer Michael Eissenhauer (born 28 November 1956 in Stuttgart) is a German art historian and was director-general of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Biography After gaining his Abitur (school-leaving certificate) in 1975, Michael Eissenhauer complet ...

Museum locations

Berlin-Mitte Mitte () (German for "middle" or "center") is a central locality () of Berlin in the eponymous district () of Mitte. Until 2001, it was itself an autonomous district. Mitte proper comprises the historic center of Alt-Berlin centered on the chu ...

Altes Museum The Altes Museum (English: ''Old Museum'') is a listed building on the Museum Island in the Mitte (locality), historic centre of Berlin. Built from 1825 to 1830 by order of King Frederick William III of Prussia according to plans by Karl Friedrich ...

: Roman and Greek Classical Antiquities **

Alte Nationalgalerie The Alte Nationalgalerie ( ''Old National Gallery'') is a listed building on the Museum Island in the Mitte (locality), historic centre of Berlin, Germany. The gallery was built from 1862 to 1876 by the order of King Frederick William IV of Prussi ...

: 19th century sculptures and paintings. **

Bode-Museum The Bode-Museum (English: ''Bode Museum''), formerly called the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum (''Emperor Frederick Museum''), is a listed building on the Museum Island in the Mitte (locality), historic centre of Berlin. It was built from 1898 to 1904 ...

: the

Numismatic Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, medals and related objects. Specialists, known as numismatists, are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, but the discipline also includ ...

Collection,

Sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

Collection and the Museum of Byzantine Art **

Neues Museum The Neues Museum (English: ''New Museum'') is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin. Built from 1843 to 1855 by order of King Frederick William IV of Prussia in Neoclassical and Renaissance Revival styles, it ...

: the

Egyptian Museum of Berlin The Egyptian Museum of Berlin (german: Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung) is home to one of the world's most important collections of ancient Egyptian artefacts, including the iconic Nefertiti Bust. Since 1855, the collection is a part of t ...

and its Papyrus Collection, and the Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte (Prehistory and Early History) **

Pergamon Museum The Pergamon Museum (; ) is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin. It was built from 1910 to 1930 by order of German Emperor Wilhelm II according to plans by Alfred Messel and Ludwig Hoffmann in Stripped Class ...

: the Antikensammlung Berlin, Museum of

Islamic art Islamic art is a part of Islamic culture and encompasses the visual arts produced since the 7th century CE by people who lived within territories inhabited or ruled by Muslim populations. Referring to characteristic traditions across a wide ra ...

, Museum of the

Ancient Near East The ancient Near East was the home of early civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq, southeast Turkey, southwest Iran and northeastern Syria), ancient Egypt, ancient Iran ( Elam, ...

and the Central

Archive An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...

Friedrichswerder Church Friedrichswerder Church (german: Friedrichswerdersche Kirche, french: Temple du Werder) was the first Neo-Gothic church built in Berlin, Germany. It was designed by an architect better known for his Neoclassical architecture, Karl Friedrich Schink ...

: early 19th century sculptures

Tiergarten/
Moabit Moabit () is an inner city locality in the borough of Mitte, Berlin, Germany. As of 2016, around 77,000 people lived in Moabit. First inhabited in 1685 and incorporated into Berlin in 1861, the former industrial and working-class neighbourhood i ...

Kulturforum The Kulturforum ( en, Cultural Forum) is a collection of cultural buildings in Berlin. It was built up in the 1950s and 1960s at the edge of West Berlin, after most of the once unified city's cultural assets had been lost behind the Berlin Wal ...

** Gemäldegalerie: Old Masters paintings ** Kunstgewerbemuseum: Museum of

decorative art ] The decorative arts are arts or crafts whose object is the design and manufacture of objects that are both beautiful and functional. It includes most of the arts making objects for the interiors of buildings, and interior design, but not usual ...

** Kupferstichkabinett Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett: Drawings and

print room A print room is a room in an art gallery or museum where a collection of old master and modern prints, usually together with drawings, watercolours, and photographs, are held and viewed. A further meaning is a room decorated by pasting prints ...

** Kunstbibliothek: Art Library **

Neue Nationalgalerie The Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery) at the Kulturforum is a museum for modern art in Berlin, with its main focus on the early 20th century. It is part of the National Gallery of the Berlin State Museums. The museum building and its ...

: New National Gallery *

Hamburger Bahnhof Hamburger Bahnhof is the former terminus of the Berlin–Hamburg Railway in Berlin, Germany, on Invalidenstrasse in the Moabit district opposite the Charité hospital. Today it serves as a contemporary art museum, the , part of the Berlin Nati ...

: Museum for

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...

including the Flick Collection

Charlottenburg Charlottenburg () is a Boroughs and localities of Berlin, locality of Berlin within the borough of Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf. Established as a German town law, town in 1705 and named after Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, Queen consort of Kingdom ...

* Museum Berggruen: classic

modern art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradi ...

* Museum of Photography /

Helmut Newton Helmut Newton (born Helmut Neustädter; 31 October 192023 January 2004) was a German-Australian photographer. The ''New York Times'' described him as a "prolific, widely imitated fashion photographer whose provocative, erotically charged black-a ...

Foundation * Museum Scharf-Gerstenberg:

surrealist art Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to ...

*Gipsformerei (

Replica A 1:1 replica is an exact copy of an object, made out of the same raw materials, whether a molecule, a work of art, or a commercial product. The term is also used for copies that closely resemble the original, without claiming to be identical. Al ...

workshop)

Dahlem

Ethnological Museum of Berlin The Ethnological Museum of Berlin (german: Ethnologisches Museum Berlin) is one of the Berlin State Museums (german: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin), the de facto national collection of the Federal Republic of Germany. It is presently located in ...

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

Archaeology, Music Ethnology,

North American Indians The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European colonization of the Americas, European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peopl ...

, South Sea,

East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea and ...

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

, Junior Museum *

Museum of Asian Art The Museum of Asian Art (german: Museum für Asiatische Kunst) is a part of the Humboldt Forum in Berlin since 2020. Before its relocation it was sited in the neighborhood of the borough of , Berlin, Germany. It is one of the Berlin State Museums ...

: Collection of South, Southeast and Central Asian Art; Collection of East Asian Art *

Museum Europäischer Kulturen The Museum of European Cultures (german: Museum Europäischer Kulturen) – National Museums in Berlin – Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation came from the unification of the Europe-Department in the Berlin Museum of Ethnography and the Berli ...

: European Cultures

Köpenick Palace Schloss Köpenick ( en, Köpenick Palace) is a Baroque water palace of the Hohenzollern electors of Brandenburg which stands on an island in the Dahme River surrounded by an English-style park and gives its name to Köpenick, a district of Ber ...

Berlin State Library The Berlin State Library (german: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin; officially abbreviated as ''SBB'', colloquially ''Stabi'') is a universal library in Berlin, Germany and a property of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation. It is one of the larg ...

*Two locations, Haus Unter Den Linden and Haus Potsdamer Straße, are open to the public; various others are not.

Research institutes

Institute for Museum Research The Institute for Museum Research (german: Institut für Museumsforschung (IfM)) is a national organization which provides services to museums in the Federal Republic of Germany in the areas of research, application-oriented teaching and document ...

* Rathgen Research Laboratory * Center for Provenance Research and Investigation

References

External links

Berlin State Museums website

Online publication of the acquisition record books and accession inventories
{{Authority control * Prussian cultural sites Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation