Museum Island Berlin City Tour: The Museum of Museums

From the first museum building in Germany to the self-reflective renovations of the post-reunification period: Museum Island has almost become a museum of museums. Discover with me what this UNESCO World Heritage Site has to say in addition to its wonderful collections and about Western museums and collections.

This tour is primarily an outdoor tour of the museums on Museum Island. Some foyers and courtyards are visited and some collections are presented. The tour takes place largely outdoors and in all weathers. A coffee break can be planned.

The institution of the museum is often regarded as a neutral representative of scientific knowledge and historical facts. This is currently slowly changing public consciousness as a result of a changed view of colonialism. One focus of this tour is to shed light on the contemporary analysis of the institution of the museum as a place of representation, historiography and self-expression of the respective culture that the museum operates.

Berlin's Museum Island is a unique collection of spectacular museums, each of which presents a variety of interesting facts before you even set foot in the exhibition space. This tour highlights the origins of the individual museums and their buildings and also questions how the institution of the museum was exploited for their purposes by successive governments.

The tour starts with a look at the Unter den Linden armoury. It now houses the German Historical Museum and has a turbulent history as a hostel for various museum institutions under various forms of government.

From here, it's over the pleasure garden to a look at the architecture and history of Schinkel's Old Museum, the first museum building in Germany (Prussia). It continues to the Neues Museum, Alte Nationalgalerie, Pergamon Museum, Bode Museum and, of course, to the new old castle: the Humboldt Forum.

A look at the history of these museums and Museum Island comes at the same time as a good dose of German history. This tour will broaden and positively change your perspective on the institution of the museum!