page_title: Altes Museum
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Altes Museum / History
caption_attribution_description: For documentary purposes the German Federal Archive often retained the original image captions, which may be erroneous, biased, obsolete or politically extreme. Berlin, Altes Museum, Gestürztes Denkmal ADN-ZB Donath Berlin 1950: Blick auf das Alte Museum (im Vordergrund ein beschädigtes Denkmal vom Berliner Schloß) .
context_page_description: The Altes Museum is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin and part of the UNESCO World Heritage. Built from 1825 to 1830 by order of King Frederick William III of Prussia according to plans by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, it is considered as a major work of German Neoclassical architecture. It is surrounded by the Berlin Cathedral to the east, the Berlin Palace to the south and the Zeughaus to the west. Currently, the Altes Museum is home to the Antikensammlung and parts of the Münzkabinett.
context_section_description: The royally appointed commission, which was responsible for the conception of the museum, decided to display only "High Art" in the proposed building which included Old Master paintings and prints and drawings on the upper floor, as well as Classical sculpture from ancient Greece and Rome on the ground floor. This precluded the incorporation of ethnography, prehistory and the excavated treasures of the ancient Near East from Assyria and Persia (and elsewhere); instead, these artifacts were primarily housed in Schloss Monbijou.
  With the completion of the Neues Museum (New Museum) by Friedrich August Stüler in 1855, Museum Island began to take form. This was followed by the Nationalgalerie (now the Alte Nationalgalerie) by Johann Heinrich Strack (1876), the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum (now the Bodemuseum) by Ernst von Ihne after plans by Stüler (1904), and the Pergamonmuseum by Alfred Messel and Ludwig Hoffmann (1930). Thus Museum Island evolved into the institution it is today.
  Julius Carl Raschdorff's 1894–1905 reconstruction of the Berliner Dom into a neo-Renaissance cathedral (replacing the classical cathedral designed by Schinkel) severely disrupted the classical ensemble, especially since the new cathedral has significantly larger dimensions than its predecessor.
  During National Socialism, the Altes Museum was used as the backdrop for propaganda, both in the museum itself and upon the parade grounds of the redesigned Lustgarten. Just before the end of Second World War, the museum was badly damaged when a tank truck exploded in front of the museum, and the frescoes designed by Schinkel and Peter Cornelius, which adorned the vestibule and the back wall of the portico, were largely lost.
  Under General Director Ludwig Justi, the building was the first museum of Museum Island to undergo reconstruction and restoration, which was carried out from 1951 to 1966 by Hans Erich Bogatzky and Theodor Voissen. Following Schinkel's designs, the murals of the rotunda were restored in 1982. However, neither the ornate ceilings of the ground floor exhibition rooms nor the pairs of columns under the girders were reconstructed. The former connection to the Neues Museum has also not been rebuilt; instead, an underground passageway connecting all of the museums of Museum Island is planned as part of the Museumsinsel 2015 renovations.
caption: Altes Museum, 1950
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