The Alte Nationalgalerie is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin, Germany. The gallery was built from 1862 to 1876 by the order of King Frederick William IV of Prussia according to plans by Friedrich August Stüler and Johann Heinrich Strack in Neoclassical and Renaissance Revival styles. The building's outside stair features a memorial to Frederick William IV. Currently, the Alte Nationalgalerie is home to paintings and sculptures of the 19th century and hosts a variety of tourist buses daily. As part of the Museum Island complex, the gallery was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1999 for its outstanding architecture and its testimony to the development of museums and galleries as a cultural phenomenon in the late 19th century.
Front façade of the Alte Nationalgalerie
Picture of the Alte Nationalgalerie from Heinrich August Pierer's Universal-Lexikon, 1891
Fjord at Holmestrand, Johan Christian Dahl, 1843
Liszt at the Piano, Josef Danhauser, 1819
The Museum Island is a museum complex on the northern part of the Spree Island in the historic heart of Berlin, Germany. It is one of the capital's most visited sights and one of the most important museum sites in Europe. Originally, built from 1830 to 1930, by order of the Prussian Kings, according to plans by five architects, the Museum Island was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999 because of its testimony to the architectural and cultural development of museums in the 19th and 20th centuries. It consists of the Altes Museum, the Neues Museum, the Alte Nationalgalerie, the Bode-Museum and the Pergamonmuseum. As the Museum Island designation includes all of Spree Island north of the Karl Leibniz avenue, the historic Berlin Cathedral is also located there, next to the open Lustgarten park. To the south of Leibniz avenue, the reconstructed Berlin Palace houses the Humboldt Forum museum and opened in 2020. Also adjacent, across the west branch of the Spree is the German Historical Museum. Since German reunification, the Museum Island has been rebuilt and extended according to a master plan. In 2019, a new visitor center and art gallery, the James Simon Gallery, was opened within the Museum Island heritage site.
The Bode-Museum on Museum Island
Museum Island with Pergamon and Bode Museum, 1951
Panorama with River Spree
Altes Museum, Lustgarten, and Berlin Cathedral