1.
Berlin Palace
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The Berlin City Palace was a royal and imperial palace in the centre of Berlin, the historical capital of Prussia, and subsequently Germany. It was located on the Museum Island at Schlossplatz, opposite the Lustgarten park and it was the winter residence of the Kings of Prussia and the German Emperors. In 2013 work started on reconstruction and a part of the exterior of the palace has been rebuilt, the completion is expected in 2019. The palace was built in the 15th century and changed throughout the next few centuries. It served as a residence to various Electors of Brandenburg and it was the principal residence and winter residence of the Hohenzollern Kings of Prussia from 1701 to 1918. After the unification of Germany in 1871, it was also the residence for the German Emperors. It became a museum following the fall of the German Empire in 1918, the palace was heavily damaged by Allied bombing in World War II. Although it could have repaired, the palace was demolished in 1950 by the German Democratic Republic authorities. Following the reunification of Germany, it was decided to rebuild the exterior of the palace in the original style except for one side. The new building will have the cubature of the former palace, the interior will be modern, but the facades of one of the courts will be in the original style. However, the floorplan has been designed to allow potential future reconstruction of notable historical rooms, the building will house the Humboldtforum museum and congress complex, and is scheduled to be finished 14 September 2019. The palace replaced an earlier fort or castle guarding the crossing of the Spree river at Cölln, the castle stood on Fishers Island, as the southern end of the Museum Island in the Spree is known. In 1443 Frederick II Irontooth, Margrave and Prince Elector of Brandenburg, at the completion of the castle in 1451, Frederick moved there from the town of Brandenburg. The castle also included a chapel, in 1454 Frederick II, after having returned via Rome from his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, made the castle chapel a parish church, richly endowing it with relics and altars. Pope Nicholas V ordered Stephan Bodecker, then Prince-Bishop of Brandenburg and this collegiate church became the nucleus of todays Evangelical Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church, adjoining the site of the castle. In 1538, the Margrave Joachim II demolished the palace and engaged the master builder Caspar Theiss to build a new, after the Thirty Years War, Frederick William, the Great Elector, embellished the palace further. In 1688, Nicodemus Tessin designed courtyard arcades with columns in front. Not much is known about the alterations of 1690–1695, when Johann Nering was the court architect, martin Grünberg continued the alterations in 1695–1699
2.
Berlin
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Berlin is the capital and the largest city of Germany as well as one of its constituent 16 states. With a population of approximately 3.5 million, Berlin is the second most populous city proper, due to its location in the European Plain, Berlin is influenced by a temperate seasonal climate. Around one-third of the area is composed of forests, parks, gardens, rivers. Berlin in the 1920s was the third largest municipality in the world, following German reunification in 1990, Berlin once again became the capital of all-Germany. Berlin is a city of culture, politics, media. Its economy is based on high-tech firms and the sector, encompassing a diverse range of creative industries, research facilities, media corporations. Berlin serves as a hub for air and rail traffic and has a highly complex public transportation network. The metropolis is a popular tourist destination, significant industries also include IT, pharmaceuticals, biomedical engineering, clean tech, biotechnology, construction and electronics. Modern Berlin is home to world renowned universities, orchestras, museums and its urban setting has made it a sought-after location for international film productions. The city is known for its festivals, diverse architecture, nightlife, contemporary arts. Since 2000 Berlin has seen the emergence of a cosmopolitan entrepreneurial scene, the name Berlin has its roots in the language of West Slavic inhabitants of the area of todays Berlin, and may be related to the Old Polabian stem berl-/birl-. All German place names ending on -ow, -itz and -in, since the Ber- at the beginning sounds like the German word Bär, a bear appears in the coat of arms of the city. It is therefore a canting arm, the first written records of towns in the area of present-day Berlin date from the late 12th century. Spandau is first mentioned in 1197 and Köpenick in 1209, although these areas did not join Berlin until 1920, the central part of Berlin can be traced back to two towns. Cölln on the Fischerinsel is first mentioned in a 1237 document,1237 is considered the founding date of the city. The two towns over time formed close economic and social ties, and profited from the right on the two important trade routes Via Imperii and from Bruges to Novgorod. In 1307, they formed an alliance with a common external policy, in 1415 Frederick I became the elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, which he ruled until 1440. In 1443 Frederick II Irontooth started the construction of a new palace in the twin city Berlin-Cölln
3.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
4.
Museum Island
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Museum Island is the name of the northern half of an island in the Spree river in the central Mitte district of Berlin, Germany, the site of the old city of Cölln. The Neues Museum finished in 1859 according to plans by Friedrich August Stüler, destroyed in World War II, it was rebuilt under the direction of David Chipperfield for the Egyptian Museum of Berlin and re-opened in 2009. It exhibits the sculpture collections and late Antique and Byzantine art, the Pergamon Museum, the final museum of the complex, constructed in 1930. It contains multiple reconstructed immense and historically significant buildings such as the Pergamon Altar, in 1999, the museum complex was added to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. A first exhibition hall was erected in 1797 at the suggestion of the archaeologist Aloys Hirt, in 1822, Schinkel designed the plans for the Altes Museum to house the royal Antikensammlung, the arrangement of the collection was overseen by Wilhelm von Humboldt. The island, originally an area, was dedicated to art. Further extended under succeeding Prussian kings, the collections of art. They are today maintained by the Berlin State Museums branch of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Museum Island further comprises the Lustgarten park and the Berlin Cathedral. Between the Bode and Pergamon Museums it is crossed by the Stadtbahn railway viaduct, the adjacent territory to the south is the site of the former Stadtschloss and the Palace of the Republic. These include the Priams Treasure, also called the gold of Troy, excavated by Heinrich Schliemann in 1873, then smuggled out of Turkey to Berlin and today kept at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. Then, six months later, Peter-Klaus Schuster took over and set in motion a far more ambitious program intended to turn Museum Island into a Louvre on the Spree. The federal government pledged $20 million a year through 2010 for projects to enhance Berlins prestige and Unesco declaring the island a World Heritage Site. The contents of the museums were decided on as follows, The Pergamon, with the Greek altar that gives it its name, the Neues Museum presented archaeological objects as well as Egyptian and Etruscan sculptures, including the renowned bust of Queen Nefertiti. The Altes Museum, the oldest on the island, displayed Greek and Roman art objects on its first floor, the Bode Museums paintings went from Late Byzantine to 1800. And, as now, the Alte Nationalgalerie will cover the 19th century, the James Simon Gallery, a $94 million visitors’ center designed by the British architect David Chipperfield, is being built beside the Neues Museum. It will in turn be linked to the Neues, Altes, Pergamon, once the Museum Island Master Plan is completed, the so-called Archaeological Promenade will connect four of the five museums in the Museum Island. The Promenade will begin at the Old Museum in the south, lead through the New Museum, before World War II, these museums were connected by bridge passages above ground, they were destroyed due to the effects of the war. There have never been plans to them, instead, the central courts of individual museums will be lowered
5.
Ethnological Museum of Berlin
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The Ethnological Museum of Berlin is one of the Berlin State Museums, the de facto national collection of the Federal Republic of Germany. It is presently located in the complex in Dahlem, along with the Museum of Asian Art. The museum holds more than 500,000 objects and is one of the largest and most important collections of works of art, as the museum’s collections expanded in the early twentieth century, the museum quickly outgrew its facility in the center of Berlin on Königgrätzer Straße. A new building was erected in Dahlem to house the museum’s store rooms, in the Second World War, the main building of the museum was heavily damaged. It was demolished in 1961, and the buildings in Dahlem were reconfigured to serve as the exhibition spaces. Following German reunification, although many of the Berlin museum collections were relocated, starting in 2000, concrete plans were developed to relocate the collections back to the center of the city. Beginning in January 2016, the Ethnological Museum began the process of dismantling its exhibitions in preparation for its move to the Humboldt Forum. Until January 2017, the museum remain open to the public, and its permanent exhibitions of works from Africa, Mesoamerican archaeology. Highlights include the collections of painted Maya vases and drinking cups, Benin bronzes, sculpture from Cameroon, the collections themselves encompass more than 500,000 from around the world. In addition, the museum more than 280,000 historical photographs, a substantial archive, more than 125,000 sound recordings. The collection is organized according to geography as well as methodological approaches, the main divisions are Africa, Oceania, East-and North-Asia, South and Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Central Asia, American ethnology, American archaeology, and ethnomusicology. The museum also houses a reference library of more than 140,000 volumes relating to ethnology, non-European art. These collections are all housed in the complex in Dahlem. The museums first building in the center of Berlin on Königgrätzer Straße was already too small to accommodate the collections when it opened in 1886, by 1906, the first construction began on a second facility for the museum in Dahlem. The museum intended to use space in Dahlem to store and conduct research on the large collections, but to continue to exhibit portions of the collection in the building in the city center. Plans were developed for a complex in Dahlem, consisting of four large buildings, one for each of the non-European geographical regions of the globe, Asia, Africa, Oceania. Construction began in 1914, the architect Bruno Paul was commissioned to build the structure to house the Asian collections, the work was stopped, however, because of the First World War and was only completed in 1921. However, the museum lacked the resources to erect the other three planned buildings, the museum continued to function with two separate facilities housing its collections until the Second World War
6.
Museum of Asian Art
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The Museum of Asian Art is located in the Dahlem neighborhood of the borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Berlin, Germany. It is one of the Berlin State Museums institutions and is funded by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and it houses some 20,000 Asian artifacts, making it one of the largest museums of ancient Asian art in the world. The museum is located in the building as the Ethnological Museum of Berlin. The museum houses important collections of Art houses of South, Southeast and Central Asian countries and art from the Indo-Asian cultural area, the collection originally belonged to the Ethnological Museum of Berlin founded in 1873. From 1904 it was known as the Indian Department, on November 8,1906, by government decree, Wilhelm von Bode, director-general of the Royal Museums of Berlin, founded the collection of the Museum of East Asian Art in Berlin. Germanys oldest museum of its kind, it was first located on Museum Island, as a result of the four German Turfan expeditions, from 1902 to 1914, the collection was expanded to include Central Asia. In 1924, the exhibition was moved into the building belonging to the Arts and Crafts Museum, the Society for East Asian Art founded in 1926 has provided substantial support for the museums work. Thanks to their consistent expansion until the Second World War, the collections were among the most important in the world. During the Second World War, there were losses, partly due to damage to the museum building. After the war, the Red Army took about 90 percent of the collections to the Soviet Union as war booty. There they were taken to the Hermitage in St Petersburg where they have remained until today, only a few pieces were returned to Berlin. The almost complete loss necessitated recreating the collection but this could only be achieved gradually, from 1952, it was the Pergamon Museum that exhibited East Asian Art. At the instigation of the first director, Herbert Härtel, the collections were presented as part of an independent Indian Art Department, after the Berlin Wall went up, it was decided in 1970 to build new exhibition premises in West Berlin in the Zehlendorf district. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification, efforts were made to reorganize Berlins museum scene, in 1992, the two separate collections were brought together in Dahlem. The Association of Friends of the Department, the Society of Indo-Asian Art Berlin eV, was founded in 1993 and it publishes the annual Indo-Asiatische Zeitschrift. The artifacts date from the third millennium BC to the present day, sculptures of stone, bronze and wood, as well as ritual objects from Nepal, Tibet, Burma, and southeast Asia complete coverage of the Indo-Asian region. Special sections include the Gandhara Art Collection and a replica of a Central Asian Buddhist cave with a section of the original. The Gandhara art displays include artifacts from the Swat Valley, the museum, with an outstanding collection of some 20,000 artifacts, has example of stone sculptures, reliefs, bronze and terracotta works representative of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism
7.
Alexander von Humboldt
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Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian geographer, naturalist, explorer, and influential proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher. Humboldts quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography, Humboldts advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement laid the foundation for modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring. Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in Latin America and his description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. Humboldt was one of the first people to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined and this important work also motivated a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity. Alexander von Humboldt was born in Berlin in Prussia on 14 September 1769 and he was baptized as a baby in the Lutheran faith, with the Duke of Brunswick serving as godfather. At age 42, Alexander Georg was rewarded for his services in the Seven Years War with the post of Royal Chamberlain and he profited from the contract to lease state lotteries and tobacco sales. He first married the daughter of Prussian General Adjutant Schweder, in 1766, Alexander Georg married Maria Elisabeth Colomb, a well-educated woman and widow of Baron Hollwede, with whom she had a son. Alexander Georg and Maria Elisabeth had three children, a daughter, who died young, and then two sons, Wilhelm and Alexander and her first-born son, Wilhelms and Alexanders half-brother, was something of a neer do well, not often mentioned in the family history. Alexander Georg died in 1779, leaving the brothers Humboldt in the care of their emotionally distant mother, Humboldts mother expected them to become civil servants of the Prussian state. The money Baron Holwede left to Alexanders mother became, after her death, instrumental in funding Alexanders explorations, due to his youthful penchant for collecting and labeling plants, shells and insects, Alexander received the playful title of the little apothecary. On April 25,1789, he matriculated at Göttingen, then known for the lectures of C. G. Heyne and his brother Wilhelm was already a student at Göttingen, but they did not interact much since their intellectual interests were quite different. His vast and varied interests were by this time fully developed, at Göttingen he met Georg Forster, a naturalist who had been with Captain James Cook on his second voyage. Humboldt traveled with Forster in Europe, the two traveled to England, Humboldts first sea voyage, The Netherlands, and France. In England, he met Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society, the scientific friendship between Banks and Humboldt lasted until Bankss death in 1820, and the two shared botanical specimens for study. Banks also mobilized his scientific contacts in later years to aid Humboldts work, Humboldts scientific excursion up the Rhine resulted in his 1790 treatise Mineralogische Beobachtungen über einige Basalte am Rhein. Humboldts passion for travel was of long standing, Humboldts talents were devoted to the purpose of preparing himself as a scientific explorer. During this period, his brother Wilhelm married, but Alexander did not attend the nuptials, Humboldt graduated from the Freiberg School of Mines in 1792 and was appointed to a Prussian government position in the Department of Mines as an inspector in Bayreuth and the Fichtel mountains
8.
Wilhelm von Humboldt
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He is especially remembered as a linguist who made important contributions to the philosophy of language and to the theory and practice of education. His younger brother, Alexander von Humboldt, was famous as a geographer, naturalist, Humboldt was born in Potsdam, Margraviate of Brandenburg, and died in Tegel, Province of Brandenburg. In June 1791, he married Karoline von Dacheröden and they had eight children, of whom five survived to adulthood. Humboldt was a philosopher, he wrote The Limits of State Action in 1791–1792 and it influenced John Stuart Mills essay On Liberty through which von Humboldts ideas became known in the English-speaking world. Humboldt outlined an early version of what Mill would later call the harm principle and his house in Rome became a cultural hub, run by Charlotte Humboldt. The section dealing with education was published in the December 1792 issue of the Berlinische Monatsschrift under the title On public state education. With this publication, Humboldt took part in the debate regarding the direction of national education that was in progress in Germany, as elsewhere. Humboldt had been home schooled and never finished his comparably short university studies at the universities of Frankfurt, nevertheless, he became one of the most influential officials in German education. Actually, Humboldt had intended to become Minister of education, the Prussian King asked him to leave Rome in 1809 and to lead the directorate of education under Friedrich Ferdinand Alexander zu Dohna-Schlobitten. Humboldt did not reply to the appointment for several weeks and would have preferred to stay on at the embassy in Rome. His wife did not return him to Prussia, the couple met again when Humboldt stepped down from the educational post and was appointed head of the Embassy in Vienna. Humboldt installed a system of public instruction, from basic schools till secondary education. He imposed a standardization of state examinations and inspections and created a department within the ministry to oversee and design curricula, textbooks. Here, Humboldt states that the task of our existence is to give the fullest possible content to the concept of humanity in our own person through the impact of actions in our own lives. This task can only be implemented through the links established between ourselves as individuals and the world around us, Humboldts concept of education does not lend itself solely to individualistic interpretation. In other words, the individual is not only entitled, but also obliged, Humboldts educational ideal was entirely coloured by social considerations. He never believed that the race could culminate in the attainment of a general perfection conceived in abstract terms. In 1789, he wrote in his diary that the education of the individual requires his incorporation into society and involves his links with society at large
9.
British Museum
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The British Museum is dedicated to human history, art and culture, and is located in the Bloomsbury area of London. The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the physician, the museum first opened to the public on 15 January 1759, in Montagu House, on the site of the current building. Although today principally a museum of art objects and antiquities. Its foundations lie in the will of the Irish-born British physician, on 7 June 1753, King George II gave his formal assent to the Act of Parliament which established the British Museum. They were joined in 1757 by the Old Royal Library, now the Royal manuscripts, together these four foundation collections included many of the most treasured books now in the British Library including the Lindisfarne Gospels and the sole surviving copy of Beowulf. The British Museum was the first of a new kind of museum – national, belonging to neither church nor king, freely open to the public, sloanes collection, while including a vast miscellany of objects, tended to reflect his scientific interests. The addition of the Cotton and Harley manuscripts introduced a literary, the body of trustees decided on a converted 17th-century mansion, Montagu House, as a location for the museum, which it bought from the Montagu family for £20,000. The Trustees rejected Buckingham House, on the now occupied by Buckingham Palace, on the grounds of cost. With the acquisition of Montagu House the first exhibition galleries and reading room for scholars opened on 15 January 1759. During the few years after its foundation the British Museum received several gifts, including the Thomason Collection of Civil War Tracts. A list of donations to the Museum, dated 31 January 1784, in the early 19th century the foundations for the extensive collection of sculpture began to be laid and Greek, Roman and Egyptian artefacts dominated the antiquities displays. Gifts and purchases from Henry Salt, British consul general in Egypt, beginning with the Colossal bust of Ramesses II in 1818, many Greek sculptures followed, notably the first purpose-built exhibition space, the Charles Towneley collection, much of it Roman Sculpture, in 1805. In 1816 these masterpieces of art, were acquired by The British Museum by Act of Parliament. The collections were supplemented by the Bassae frieze from Phigaleia, Greece in 1815, the Ancient Near Eastern collection also had its beginnings in 1825 with the purchase of Assyrian and Babylonian antiquities from the widow of Claudius James Rich. The neoclassical architect, Sir Robert Smirke, was asked to draw up plans for an extension to the Museum. For the reception of the Royal Library, and a Picture Gallery over it, and put forward plans for todays quadrangular building, much of which can be seen today. The dilapidated Old Montagu House was demolished and work on the Kings Library Gallery began in 1823, the extension, the East Wing, was completed by 1831. The Museum became a site as Sir Robert Smirkes grand neo-classical building gradually arose
10.
Neil MacGregor
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Robert Neil MacGregor, OM, AO, FSA is a British art historian and former museum director. He was the editor of the Burlington Magazine from 1981 to 1987, then Director of the National Gallery, London, from 1987 to 2002, Neil MacGregor was born in Glasgow to two doctors, Alexander and Anna MacGregor. MacGregor was educated at Glasgow Academy and then read modern languages at New College, Oxford, the period that followed was spent studying philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, and as a law student at Edinburgh University, where he received the Green Prize. Despite being called to the bar in 1972, MacGregor next decided to take an art history degree, the following year, on a Courtauld Institute summer school in Bavaria, the Courtaulds director Anthony Blunt spotted MacGregor and persuaded him to take a masters degree under his supervision. Blunt later considered MacGregor the most brilliant pupil he ever taught, from 1975 to 1981, MacGregor taught History of Art and Architecture at the University of Reading. He left to assume the editorship of The Burlington Magazine and he oversaw the transfer of the magazine from the Thomson Corporation to an independent and charitable status. In 1987 MacGregor became a successful director of the National Gallery in London. There he was dubbed Saint Neil, partly because of his popularity at that institution and he declined the offer of a knighthood in 1999, the first director of the National Gallery to do so. MacGregor was made director of the British Museum in August 2002, holding his office during a period which has seen the Acropolis Museum constructed in Athens, he has consistently argued against returning the British Museums sculptures from the Parthenon to Greece. In January 2008, MacGregor was appointed chairman of the World Collections programme, the exhibition The First Emperor, focussing on Qin Shi Huang and including a small number of his Terracotta Warriors, was mounted in 2008 in the British Museum Reading Room. That year MacGregor was invited to succeed Philippe de Montebello as the Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and he declined the offer as the Metropolitan charges its visitors for entry and is thus not a public institution. He similarly made comments that sparked debate, such as his claim that the ancient Persian empire was greater than Ancient Greece. In 2010, MacGregor presented a series on BBC Radio 4, from September 2010 to January 2011 the British Museum lent the ancient Persian Cyrus Cylinder to an exhibition in Tehran. This was seen by at least a million visitors by the Museums estimation, more than any loan exhibition to the United Kingdom had attracted since the Treasures of Tutankhamun exhibition in 1972. As of 2015, MacGregor was paid a salary of between £190,000 and £194,999 by the British Museum, making him one of the 328 most highly paid people in the British public sector at that time. MacGregor retired from the post in December 2015 and was succeeded in Spring 2016 by Hartwig Fischer, MacGregor has made many programmes for British television and radio. In the year 2000, he presented on television Seeing Salvation, at the end of September 2014 UK domestic transmission started of his similarly formatted Talk Radio series Germany, Memories of a Nation. On 8 April 2015, MacGregor announced his resignation as Director of the British Museum, MacGregor will be joined on the committee by archaeologist Hermann Parzinger and art historian Horst Bredekamp
11.
Joachim II Hector, Elector of Brandenburg
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Joachim II was a Prince-elector of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, the sixth member of the House of Hohenzollern. Joachim II was the eldest son of Joachim I Nestor, Elector of Brandenburg and his wife Elizabeth of Denmark, Norway and he received the cognomen Hector after the Trojan prince and warrior for his athel qualities and prowess. Joachim II was born in Cölln and his father, Joachim I Nestor, made Joachim Hector sign an inheritance contract in which he promised to remain Roman Catholic. This was intended in part to assist Joachim Nestors younger brother, Joachim Nestor, who had co-financed this accumulation of offices, agreed to let Albert recover these costs by the sale of indulgences to his subjects. Thus repayment of the debt to the Fugger depended on the sale of indulgences to Catholic believers in Brandenburg, however, had Joachim Hector not agreed to this, he would likely have been passed over in the line of inheritance. His first marriage was to Magdalena of Saxony from the ducal Albertine line of the House of Wettin, in 1535 he married Hedwig, daughter of King Sigismund I the Old of Poland. As the Jagiellon dynasty was Catholic, Joachim II promised Sigismund that he would not make Hedwig change her religious affiliation, with the deaths of his father Joachim Nestor and father-in-law Sigismund, Joachim turned gradually to the Protestant Reformation. On 1 November 1539, he received Communion under both kinds in Spandaus St. Nicholas Church, an act that indicated a degree of sympathy with the new religious ideas. However, Joachim did not explicitly adopt Lutheranism until 1555, to open confrontation with his ally. This pogrom had resulted in the expulsion of the Jews from Brandenburg, the Jewish advocate Josel von Rosheim, who was also in attendance, pleaded privately with Joachim to allow the Jews to settle in the Brandenburg again. Joachim acceded to this request on 25 June 1539 and his wife Hedwigs mother Barbara Zápolya was a sister of John Zápolya, who had claimed the vacant throne of Hungary after King Louis II was killed in battle against the Ottoman Empire in 1526. However, Joachim supported Ferdinand of Habsburg, who claimed the crown. In 1542 Joachim assisted Ferdinand against the Ottomans at the Siege of Buda and he commanded an army of Austrian, Hungarian, German, Bohemian, Italian, and Dalmatian troops, but the Elector was not a seasoned warrior and eventually beat a retreat. He was defeated again by the Ottomans in the Siege of Pest in 1542, in 1545 Joachim held a gala double wedding celebration for his two children, John George and Barbara. They were married to Sophie and George, both children of the Piast Duke Frederick II of Liegnitz in Silesia, Joachim was a brother-in-law of King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland. In 1569, he paid Sigismund for a deed of enfeoffment which made Joachim, in 1571, Joachim died in the Köpenick Palace, which he had built in 1558. Joachim Hector co-inherits Ducal Prussia Portrait of Magdalena of Saxony
12.
Thirty Years' War
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The Thirty Years War was a series of wars in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648. It was one of the longest and most destructive conflicts in European history, as well as the deadliest European religious war, resulting in eight million casualties. Initially a war between various Protestant and Catholic states in the fragmented Holy Roman Empire, it developed into a more general conflict involving most of the great powers. These states employed relatively large mercenary armies, and the war became less about religion, in the 17th century, religious beliefs and practices were a much larger influence on an average European than they are today. The war began when the newly elected Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand II, tried to impose uniformity on his domains. The northern Protestant states, angered by the violation of their rights to choose that had granted in the Peace of Augsburg. Ferdinand II was a devout Roman Catholic and relatively intolerant when compared to his predecessor and his policies were considered strongly pro-Catholic. They ousted the Habsburgs and elected Frederick V, Elector of the Rhenish Palatinate as their monarch, Frederick took the offer without the support of the union. The southern states, mainly Roman Catholic, were angered by this, led by Bavaria, these states formed the Catholic League to expel Frederick in support of the Emperor. The Empire soon crushed this rebellion in the Battle of White Mountain. After the atrocities committed in Bohemia, Saxony finally gave its support to the union, Spain, wishing to finally crush the Dutch rebels in the Netherlands and the Dutch Republic, intervened under the pretext of helping its dynastic Habsburg ally, Austria. No longer able to tolerate the encirclement of two major Habsburg powers on its borders, Catholic France entered the coalition on the side of the Protestants in order to counter the Habsburgs. Both mercenaries and soldiers in fighting armies traditionally looted or extorted tribute to get operating funds, the war also bankrupted most of the combatant powers. The Thirty Years War ended with the treaties of Osnabrück and Münster, the war altered the previous political order of European powers. Lutherans living in a prince-bishopric could continue to practice their faith, Lutherans could keep the territory they had taken from the Catholic Church since the Peace of Passau in 1552. Those prince-bishops who had converted to Lutheranism were required to give up their territories and this added a third major faith to the region, but its position was not recognized in any way by the Augsburg terms, to which only Catholicism and Lutheranism were parties. The Dutch revolted against Spanish domination during the 1560s, leading to a war of independence that led to a truce only in 1609. This dynastic concern overtook religious ones and led to Catholic Frances participation on the otherwise Protestant side of the war, Sweden and Denmark-Norway were interested in gaining control over northern German states bordering the Baltic Sea
13.
Frederick William, Elector of Brandenburg
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Frederick William was Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia – and thus ruler of Brandenburg-Prussia – from 1640 until his death. A member of the House of Hohenzollern, he is known as the Great Elector because of his military. Frederick William was a pillar of the Calvinist faith, associated with the rising commercial class. He saw the importance of trade and promoted it vigorously, Elector Frederick William was born in Berlin to George William, Elector of Brandenburg, and Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate. His inheritance consisted of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, the Duchy of Cleves, the County of Mark, and the Duchy of Prussia. During the Thirty Years War, George William strove to maintain, with a minimal army, out of these unpromising beginnings Frederick William managed to rebuild his war-ravaged territories. In contrast to the disputes that disrupted the internal affairs of other European states. With the help of French subsidies, he built up an army to defend the country, in the conflict for Pomerania inheritance, Frederick William had to accept two setbacks, one in the Northern War and one in the Scanian War. Though militarily successful in Swedish Pomerania, he had to bow to Frances demands, Frederick William was a military commander of wide renown, and his standing army would later become the model for the Prussian Army. He later destroyed another Swedish army that invaded the Duchy of Prussia during the Great Sleigh Drive in 1678, Frederick William is notable for raising an army of 40,000 soldiers by 1678, through the General War Commissariat presided over by Joachim Friedrich von Blumenthal. He was an advocate of mercantilism, monopolies, subsidies, tariffs, on Blumenthals advice he agreed to exempt the nobility from taxes and in return they agreed to dissolve the Estates-General. Dorothea, Christian Ludwig, recipient of Bachs Brandenburg Concertos, media related to Friedrich Wilhelm I of Brandenburg at Wikimedia Commons
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Frederick I of Prussia
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Frederick I, of the Hohenzollern dynasty, was Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia in personal union. The latter function he upgraded to royalty, becoming the first King in Prussia, from 1707 he was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel. He was also the grandfather of Frederick the Great. His maternal cousin was King William III of England, upon the death of his father on 29 April 1688, Frederick became Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia. Right after ascending the throne Frederick founded a new city southerly adjacent to Dorotheenstadt and named it after himself, Frederick was noted for his opposition to France, in contrast to his father who had sought an alliance with Louis XIV. Frederick took Brandenburg into the League of Augsburg against France and in 1689 led military forces into the field as part of the allied coalition and that year an army under his command besieged and captured Bonn. Despite this opposition to France he was fond of French culture, the Hohenzollern state was then known as Brandenburg-Prussia. The familys main possessions were the Margraviate of Brandenburg within the Holy Roman Empire, although he was the Margrave and Prince-elector of Brandenburg and the Duke of Prussia, Frederick desired the more prestigious title of king. However, according to Germanic law at that time, no kingdoms could exist within the Holy Roman Empire, Frederick persuaded Leopold I, Archduke of Austria and Holy Roman Emperor, to allow Prussia to be elevated to a kingdom. This agreement was given in exchange for an alliance against King Louis XIV in the War of the Spanish Succession. Frederick argued that Prussia had never been part of the Holy Roman Empire, therefore, he said, there was no legal or political barrier to letting him rule it as a kingdom. Frederick was aided in the negotiations by Charles Ancillon, Frederick crowned himself on 18 January 1701 in Königsberg. Therefore, out of deference to the historic ties to the Polish crown. His royalty was, in any case, limited to Prussia, in other words, while he was a king in Prussia, he was still only an elector under the suzerainty of the Holy Roman Emperor in Brandenburg. Legally, the Hohenzollern state was still a personal union between Brandenburg and Prussia and his grandson, Frederick the Great, was the first Prussian king to formally style himself King of Prussia. Frederick was a patron of the arts and learning, Frederick also appointed Jacob Paul von Gundling as Professor of History and Law at the Berlin Knights Academy in 1705, and as historian at the Higher Heralds Office in 1706. Frederick was married three times, first to Elizabeth Henrietta of Hesse-Kassel, with whom he had one child, Louise Dorothea, born 1680, then to Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, with whom he had Frederick August Frederick William I, born in 1688, who succeeded him. In 1708, he married Sophia Louise of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, who survived him but had no children by him, Frederick died in Berlin in 1713 and is entombed in the Berliner Dom
15.
Wilhelm von Bode
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Wilhelm von Bode was a German art historian and curator. Born Arnold Wilhelm Bode in Calvörde, he was ennobled in 1913 and he was the creator and first curator of the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, now called the Bode Museum in his honor, in 1904. Bode studied law at the Universities of Göttingen and Berlin, while practicing law in Braunschweig he systematically rearranged the ducal art collections, and visited a number of museums and private collections in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy. After studies in art history in Berlin and Vienna, he received his doctorate from the University of Leipzig in 1870 based on his dissertation Frans Hals und seine Schule. In 1872 he took a position as an assistant curator of sculpture in the museums in Berlin. He took over the Gemäldegalerie in 1890, and became director of what is now the Berlin State Museums in 1905. He was also in charge of rebuilding the museums of Strasbourg, bodes writings on a wide variety of topics in art history, particularly Italian Renaissance art, were widely influential, and remain key texts in the field. His autobiography, Mein Leben, was published posthumously in 1930, von Bode, the general manager of the Prussian Art Collections for the Berlin Museum, had spotted the bust in a London gallery and purchased it for a few pounds. Shortly afterwards, The Times ran an article claiming that the bust was the work of Lucas, lucass son, Albert, then came forward and swore under oath that the story was correct and that he had helped his father to make it. Albert was able to explain how the layers of wax had been built up from old candle ends, he described how his father would stuff various debris, including newspapers. When the Berlin museum staff removed the base they found the debris, just as Albert had described it, despite this evidence, Bode continued to claim that his original attribution was correct. Various claims and counter-claims have been put forward about the bust, scientific examination has been inconclusive and unhelpful in dating the bust, although it is accepted as having at least some connection with Lucas. The bust remains on display in what is now the Bode Museum labelled England, Leipzig Studien zur Geschichte der hollandischen Malerei, Braunschweig,1883 Geschichte der deutschen Plastik,1887 Rembrandt,8 volumes, with C. Hofstede de Groot, 1897–1905 Der Cicerone, Eine Anleitung zum Genuss der Kunstwerke Italiens von Jacob Burckhardt, 1900–1901 Kunst und Kunstgewerbe am Ende des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. Die Meister der holländischen und vlämischen Malerschulen,1917, die italienischen Bronzestatuetten der Renaissance,1922. Catalogue of the Collection of Pictures and Bronzes in the Possession of Mr. Otto Beit, Introduction and Descriptions by Dr. Wilhelm Bode,1913. The Collection of Pictures of the Late Herr A. de Ridder in his Villa at Schönberg near Cronberg in the Taunus, Catalogued and Described by Wilhelm Bode, antique Rugs from the Near East, translated by R. M. Riefstahl,1922. Sandro Botticelli, translated by F. Renfield and F. L. Rudston Brown,1925, florentine sculptors of the Renaissance, translated by Jessie Haynes,1928
16.
Joachim Gauck
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Joachim Gauck served as President of Germany from March 2012 to March 2017. A former Lutheran pastor, he came to prominence as an anti-communist civil rights activist in East Germany, during the 1989 revolution, he was a co-founder of the New Forum opposition movement in East Germany, which contributed to the downfall of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany. In 1990 he served as a member of the freely elected Peoples Chamber for the Alliance 90. As Federal Commissioner, he earned recognition as a Stasi hunter and tireless pro-democracy advocate, exposing the crimes of the communist secret police. He was nominated as the candidate of the SPD and the Greens for President of Germany in the 2010 election, but lost in the draw to Christian Wulff. His candidacy was met by significant approval of the population and the media, Der Spiegel described him as the better President, a son of a survivor of a Soviet Gulag, Gaucks political life was formed by his own familys experiences with totalitarianism. Gauck was a signatory of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism, together with Václav Havel and other statesmen. He has called for increased awareness of communist crimes in Europe and he is the author and co-author of several books, including The Black Book of Communism. A Plea calls for the defense of freedom and human rights around the globe and he has been described by Chancellor Angela Merkel as a true teacher of democracy and a tireless advocate of freedom, democracy, and justice. The Wall Street Journal has described him as the last of a breed and he has received numerous honours, including the 1997 Hannah Arendt Prize. Joachim Gauck was born into a family of sailors in Rostock and his father was an experienced ships captain and distinguished naval officer, who after World War II worked as an inspector at the Neptun Werft shipbuilding company. Following the Soviet occupation at the end of World War II, when Joachim Gauck was eleven years old, in 1951, his father was arrested by Soviet occupation forces, he was not to return until 1955. For nearly three years, the family knew nothing about what had happened to him and whether he was still alive and he was freed in 1955, following the state visit of Konrad Adenauer to Moscow. Adenauer negotiated the release of thousands of German prisoners of war, Gauck graduated with an Abitur from Innerstädtisches Gymnasium in Rostock. According to Joachim Gauck, his activities were inspired by the ordeal of his father. Already in school in East Germany, he made no secret of his anti-communist position, and he refused to join the communist youth movement. He wanted to study German and become a journalist, but because he wasnt a communist, instead he chose to study theology and become a pastor in the Protestant church in Mecklenburg. Nevertheless, he did become a pastor
17.
Horst Bredekamp
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Horst Bredekamp is a German art historian. Bredekamp studied art history, archeology, philosophy and sociology in Kiel, Munich, Berlin, in 1974 he received his doctorate at the Philipps-Universität Marburg with a thesis on art as a medium of social conflicts, especially the Bilderkämpfe of late antiquity to the Hussite revolution. He worked first as a volunteer at the Liebieghaus in Frankfurt am Main, in 1982 he was appointed professor of art history at the University of Hamburg, in 1993 he moved to the Humboldt University Berlin. Since 2003 he has been a Permanent Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study, Bredekamp visited the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin, Getty Center, Los Angeles and the Collegium Budapest. The research foci of Horst Bredekamp are Iconoclastic Fury, sculpture of the Romanesque, art of the Renaissance and Mannerism, political iconography, art and technology, since 2008 Bredekamp has directed the newly established DFG-Kolleg research group Picture Act and embodiment at the Humboldt University Berlin. After a thorough inspection including material technical studies this issue was found to be genuine by Horst Bredekamp et al. In 2012, the historian Nick Wilding discovered, that this copy was a complete forgery which had been brought by the Italian antiquarian Marino Massimo De Caro in the U. S. antique trade. Bredekamp is a member of the board of the Schering Foundation, monographs, Kunst als Medium sozialer Konflikte. Bilderkämpfe von der Spätantike bis zur Hussitenrevolution, Frankfurt am Main 1975, Kunst am Mittelrhein um 1400, Frankfurt am Main 1975. Horst Bredekamp Vicino Orsini und der heilige Wald von Bomarzo, ein Fürst als Künstler und Anarchist, Worms 1985,2. Florenz als Garten der Venus, Frankfurt am Main 1988, New edition Berlin 2002, die Geschichte der Kunstkammer und die Zukunft der Kunstgeschichte, Berlin 1992. Calcio als Fest der Medici, Frankfurt am Main 1993, revised edition Berlin 2001, Repräsentation und Bildmagie der Renaissance als Formproblem, München 1995. Sankt Peter in Rom und das Prinzip der produktiven Zerstörung, bau und Abbau von Bramante bis Bernini, Berlin 2000. Der Leviathan, Urbild des modernen Staates, New edition under the title Thomas Hobbes, Der Leviathan. Das Urbild des modernen Staates und seine Gegenbilder, gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Theater der Natur und Kunst, Berlin 2004. Die frühen Evolutionsdiagramme und die Tradition der Naturgeschichte, Berlin 2005, von der Kunstkammer zum Endspiel, Berlin 2007. Der Mond, die Sonne, die Hand, Berlin 2007, ein Element der frühmodernen Rechts- und Staatstheorie, München 2008. Akten des internationalen Symposions, Berlin 1990, wunderkammern des Wissens,2 Bände, Berlin 2000
18.
Humboldt Box
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The Humboldt Box is a futuristic museum structure on the Schloßplatz in the center of Berlin, Germany. It was built as an exhibition space and viewing platform for the Humboldt Forum construction project. The futuristic five-storey building in the center of Berlin, complete with terraces and it opened on 29 June 2011 and welcomed its 100, 000th visitor 50 days later. After completion of the Humboldt Forum, planned for 2019, the structure is slated to be dismantled, one floor of the building also serves as a venue for private events. The Humboldt Box was designed by the firm of KSV Krüger Schuberth Vandreike. The Humboldt Box was built as an information centre about plans for a palace, a viewing platform for its construction site. The idea came from a structure at Potsdamer Platz, the Visitor Box on Stilts. Used by Hohenzollern Prussian kings and German Emperors, the palace suffered extensive damage in World War II and was razed in 1950 by the East German government. The project to rebuild stalled in 2008 amid political and financial disputes, the new City Palace has since been proposed as an extension of the Berlin State Museums and Humboldt University, with modern interiors, but facades and domes resembling the former imperial palace. The company Megaposter was awarded the contract for construction of the Humboldt Box in September 2009, to do this, the fences around the construction site of the new Berlin City Palace would be hired as advertising space, to some controversy. The City Palace plans have since been approved by the Berlin Senate. The new palace, called the project of a century, once estimated at 550 million euros, is now expected to cost nearly 600 million euros, the Humboldt Box concept has been criticized, especially after postponement of construction of the Humboldt Forum. It has been called a block with the charm of a dumpster, Thomas Flierl, urban development spokesman for Die Linke Party. The newspaper die Tageszeitung described the Box as the most useless building in the city, alfred Grazioli, professor of architecture criticized the planners as being too insensitive to handle the historical site. The Tagesspiegel called it a monster in galactic proportions. Humboldt Box official website KSV Krüger Schuberth Vandreike Project architects website Das temporäre Wahrzeichen Berlins Megaposter
19.
Pergamon Museum
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The Pergamon Museum is situated on the Museum Island in Berlin. The building was designed by Alfred Messel and Ludwig Hoffmann and was constructed over a period of twenty years, the museum is subdivided into the antiquity collection, the Middle East museum, and the museum of Islamic art. It is visited by approximately 1,135,000 people every year, making it the most visited art museum in Germany, Alfred Messel began a design for the large three-wing building in 1906. After his death in 1909 his friend Ludwig Hoffman took charge of the project and construction began in 1910, continuing during the First World War, the completed building was opened In 1930. The Pergamon Museum was severely damaged during the air attacks on Berlin at the end of the Second World War, many of the display objects had been stored in safe places, and some of the large exhibits were walled in for protection. In 1945, the Red Army collected all of the museum items, either as war booty or, ostensibly, to rescue them from looting. Not until 1958 were most of the returned to East Germany. Significant parts of the remain in Russia. Some are currently stored in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow and the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, the return of these items has been arranged in a treaty between Germany and Russia but, as of June 2003, is blocked by Russian restitution laws. It first became accessible to the public in 1830, when the Altes Museum was opened, the collection expanded greatly with the excavations in Olympia, Samos, Pergamon, Miletus, Priene, Magnesia, Cyprus and Didyma. This collection is divided between the Pergamon Museum and the Altes Museum, as Germany was divided following the Second World War, so was the collection. The Pergamon Museum was reopened in 1959 in East Berlin, while what remained in West Berlin was displayed in Schloss Charlottenburg, when the Bode Museum was opened in 1904, a section for Islamic art was created and later included in the Pergamon Museum. It was a gift from the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II to Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany, parts of the eastern portion of the facade and the ruins of the structure of which it formed a part remain in Jordan. Another unique exhibition is the Aleppo room and this area of the museum features a reception room from a brokers home in Aleppo, Syria, that was commissioned during the Ottoman Period. The Islamic Art Museum also regularly hosts exhibitions of modern art from the Islamic world, such as the 2008 Turkish Delight. In 2008 part of the Keir Collection of Edmund de Unger, formerly housed in his home in Ham, the Middle East Museum exhibition displays objects found by German archeologists and others from the areas of Assyrian, Sumerian and Babylonian culture. Additionally there are buildings, reliefs and lesser cultural objects. The main display is the Ishtar Gate and the Processional Way of Babylon together with the throne room facade of Nebuchadnezzar II, the Vorderasiatisches Museum also displays the Meissner fragment from the Epic of Gilgamesh
20.
Altes Museum
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The Altes Museum is a museum building on Museum Island in Berlin, Germany. Since restoration work in 2010-11, it houses the Antikensammlung of the Berlin State Museums, the museum building was built between 1823 and 1830 by the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel in the neoclassical style to house the Prussian royal familys art collection. The historic, protected building counts among the most distinguished in neoclassicism and is a point of Schinkels career. Until 1845, it was called the Königliches Museum, along with the other museums and historic buildings on Museum Island, the Altes Museum was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999. In the early century, Germanys bourgeoisie had become increasingly self-aware. King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia was a proponent of this humboldtian ideal for education. The crown prince even sent Schinkel a pencil sketch of a large hall adorned with a classical portico, Schinkels plans incorporated the Königliches Museum into an ensemble of buildings, which surround the Berliner Lustgarten. The Stadtschloss in the south was a symbol of power, the Zeughaus in the west represented military might. The museum to the north of the garden, which was to provide for the education of the people, stood as a symbol for science and art—and not least for their torchbearer, the self-aware bourgeoisie. Schinkel had developed plans for the Königliches Museum as early as 1822/23, construction was completed in 1828 and the museum was inaugurated on 3 August 1830. In 1841, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV announced in a royal decree, in 1845, the Königliches Museum was renamed the Altes Museum, the name it holds to this day. The royally appointed commission, which was responsible for the conception of the museum and this precluded the incorporation of ethnography, prehistory and the excavated treasures of the Near East, instead, these artifacts were primarily housed in Schloss Monbijou. With the completion of the Neues Museum by Friedrich August Stüler in 1855 and this was followed by the Nationalgalerie by Johann Heinrich Strack, the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum by Ernst von Ihne after plans by Stüler, and the Pergamonmuseum by Alfred Messel and Ludwig Hoffmann. Thus Museum Island evolved into the institution it is today, 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. Following Schinkels 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 Altes Museum was originally constructed to house all of the collections of fine arts. However, since 1904, the museum has housed the Antikensammlung, since 1998, the Collection of Classical Antiquities has displayed its Greek collection, including the treasury, on the ground floor of the Altes Museum. Special exhibitions are displayed on the floor of the museum
21.
Bode Museum
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The Bode Museum is one of the group of museums on the Museum Island in Berlin, Germany. It was designed by architect Ernst von Ihne and completed in 1904, originally called the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum after Emperor Frederick III, the museum was renamed in honour of its first curator, Wilhelm von Bode, in 1956. Closed for repairs since 1997, the museum was reopened on October 18,2006 after a €156 million refurbishment. True to the ethos of its director, Wilhelm von Bode, who believed in mixing art collections, it is now the home for a collection of sculptures, Byzantine art. The sculpture collection shows art of the Christian Orient, sculptures from Byzantium and Ravenna, sculptures of the Middle Ages, the Italian Gothic, and the early Renaissance. Late German Gothic works are represented by Tilman Riemenschneider, the south German Renaissance. In the future selected works of the Gemäldegalerie will be integrated into the sculpture collection and this is reminiscent of William von Bodes concept of style rooms, in which sculptures, paintings, and crafts are viewed together, as was usual in upper middle-class private collections. The Münzkabinett is one of the worlds largest numismatic collections and its range spans from the beginning of minting in the 7th century BC in Asia Minor up to the present day. With approximately 500,000 items the collection is an archive for historical research. Writing in The Financial Times on the occasion on the reopening in 2006, Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum. Wilhelm von Bode, the manager of the Prussian Art Collections for the Berlin Museum, had spotted the bust in a London gallery. Shortly afterwards, The Times ran an article claiming that the bust was the work of Lucas, lucass son, Albert, then came forward and swore under oath that the story was correct and that he had helped his father to make it. Albert was able to explain how the layers of wax had been built up from old candle ends, he described how his father would stuff various debris, including newspapers. When the Berlin museum staff removed the base they found the debris, just as Albert had described it, despite this evidence, Bode continued to claim that his original attribution was correct. Various claims and counter-claims have been put forward about the bust, scientific examination has been inconclusive and unhelpful in dating the bust, although it is accepted as having at least some connection with Lucas. The bust remains on display in what is now the Bode Museum labelled England, on 27 March 2017, a solid gold coin called the Big Maple Leaf, issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007 as a commemorative piece, was stolen from the museum. The coin, at 53cm in diameter and 3cm in thickness, is made of 24-carat gold and is worth around €3.7 million. A ladder was found on the train tracks nearby, leading German police to speculate that the thief entered the building by breaking open a window in the back of the next to the railway tracks
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Egyptian Museum of Berlin
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The Egyptian Museum of Berlin is home to one of the worlds most important collections of Ancient Egyptian artifacts, including the iconic Nefertiti Bust. Since October 2009, the collection is part of the reopened Neues Museum on Berlins Museum Island, the museum originated in the 18th century from the royal art collection of the Hohenzollern kings of Prussia. Alexander von Humboldt had recommended that an Egyptian section be created, initially housed in Monbijou Palace, the department was headed by the Trieste merchant Giuseppe Passalacqua, whose extensive collections formed the basis. A Prussian expedition to Egypt and Nubia led by Karl Richard Lepsius in 1842–45 brought additional pieces to Berlin, in 1850, the collections moved to its present-day home in the Neues Museum, built according to plans designed by Friedrich August Stüler. The Nefertiti Bust, discovered during the excavations by Ludwig Borchardt in Amarna, was donated to the museum by the entrepreneur Henri James Simon in 1920, it quickly became its best-known exhibit. After World War II, during which the Neues Museum was heavily damaged by strategic bombing, the main part remained in East Berlin and was displayed at the Bode Museum, while those artifacts evacuated to West Germany, including the Nefetiti Bust, returned to West Berlin. From 1967 to 2005, these items were housed vis-à-vis Charlottenburg Palace, the whole collection was reunited again after the Reunification of Germany, when it returned to Museum Island. The collection contains artefacts dating from between 4000BC to the period of Roman rule, though most date from the rule of Akhenaten, the most famous piece on display is the exceptionally well preserved and vividly coloured bust of Queen Nefertiti. The collection was moved from Charlottenburg to the Altes Museum in 2005 and was rehoused within the newly reconstructed Neues Museum on Berlins Museum Island in October 2009
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Alte Nationalgalerie
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It is the original building of the National Gallery, whose holdings are now housed in several additional buildings. It is situated on Museum Island, a UNESCO-designated World Heritage Site, the first impetus to founding a national gallery came in 1815. The idea gained momentum during the 1830s, but without an actual building, in 1841 the first real plans were created. This donation formed the basis of the current collection, the collection was first known as Wagenersche und Nationalgalerie and was housed in the buildings of the Akademie der Künste. The current building, shaped like a Roman temple with an apse, was designed by Friedrich August Stüler and after his death. Friedrich August Stüler began working on a design for the building in 1863, two years and two failed plans later, his third proposal was finally accepted. Stüler died before planning was completed and Carl Busse handled the details in 1865. In 1866, by order of the king and his cabinet, ground was broken in 1867 under the supervision of Heinrich Strack. In 1872 the structure was completed and interior work began, the opening took place on March 22,1876 in the presence of the Kaiser. Because of the modern construction using brick and iron, it was widely believed to be fireproof. The exterior and outer staircase were constructed of Triassic sandstone from Nebra, at the opening the collection was still relatively small. Next to Wageners collection, originally, was a display of cartoons by Peter von Cornelius that had been bequeathed to the Prussian government, the initial objective of the gallery was to collect contemporary, primarily Prussian art, as Berlin did not then have any repository of modern art. In 1874 Max Jordan became the first director of the National Gallery, in 1896 he was succeeded by Hugo von Tschudi, who acquired Impressionist works, risking conflict with the Kaiser because this ended the collections focus on German art. The German National Gallery thus became the most important museum for modern French Art at the turn of the century, in 1909, Ludwig Justi assumed the post of director, and added Expressionist works to the collection. Following the German Revolution of 1918–1919 that ended Imperial rule, he moved the art to the Kronprinzenpalais at the end of Unter den Linden. In 1933, the new Nazi authorities dismissed Justi, who was followed by Eberhard Hanfstaengl and he remained until 1937, when he too was dismissed. His successor, Paul Ortwin Rave, remained until 1950, although because of World War II the building was closed during much of that time and it was heavily damaged in Allied air raids. It was partly reopened in 1949, but reconstruction continued until 1969, between 1998 and 2001, the museum was renovated thoroughly by German architect HG Merz
24.
Neues Museum
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The Neues Museum is a museum in Berlin, Germany, located to the north of the Altes Museum on Museum Island. It was built between 1843 and 1855 according to plans by Friedrich August Stüler, a student of Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the museum was closed at the beginning of World War II in 1939, and was heavily damaged during the bombing of Berlin. The rebuilding was overseen by the English architect David Chipperfield, the museum officially reopened in October 2009 and received a 2010 RIBA European Award and the 2011 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture. Exhibits include the Egyptian and Prehistory and Early History collections, as it did before the war, the artifacts it houses include the iconic bust of the Egyptian queen Nefertiti. Both as a part of the Museum Island complex and as an individual building, with its new industrialized building procedures and its use of iron construction, the museum plays an important role in the history of technology. The Neues Museum was the museum to be built on Museum Island and was intended as an extension to house collections which could not be accommodated in the Altes Museum. Among these were collections of plaster casts, ancient Egyptian artifacts, the prehistoric and early historic collections, the collection. It is thus the source of the collections in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin. Moreover, the Neues Museum is an important monument in the history of construction, with its various iron constructions, it is the first monumental building of Prussia to consistently apply new techniques made possible by industrialization. As a further innovation, an engine was used for the first time in construction in Berlin. Among other things, it was used to ram pilings into the building ground, the soft, spongy soil around the River Spree means that buildings in the central area of Berlin require deep foundations. The king, with his cabinet, had ordered that the construction project be assigned to Stüler on 8 March 1841. The poor quality of the ground at the site became apparent quickly. Therefore, a structure was necessary under the whole building, consisting of 2344 wooden foundation piles between 6.9 and 18.2 meters long. To ram the piles in, a 5-horsepower steam engine was used and it drove the pumps that drained the building site, the elevators, and the mortar mixing machines. The newsletter of the Berlin Architecture Association reported on the building site, on 6 April 1843 when the ceremony of laying the cornerstone took place, the foundations, including the cellars, were already built. Construction of the walls was completed at the end of 1843, so that by 1844, in 1845, iron constructions, the construction of flat vaulted ceilings and brick-lining of the connecting gallery to the Altes Museum were completed. An auxiliary railway transported building materials from the street just west across the River Spree, Am Kupfergraben, on the individual floors of the museum, rails were also used to transport construction materials
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Berlin Cathedral
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Berlin Cathedral is the short name for the Evangelical Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church in Berlin, Germany. It is located on Museum Island in the Mitte borough, the current building was finished in 1905 and is a main work of Historicist architecture of the Kaiserzeit. The Berlin Cathedral has never been a cathedral in the sense of that term since it has never been the seat of a bishop. The bishop of the Evangelical Church in Berlin-Brandenburg is based at St. Marys Church, Berlin Cathedral has a long history starting as a Roman Catholic place of worship in the 15th century. The history of todays Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church and its community dates back to 1451, in 1454 Frederick Irontooth, after having returned – via Rome – from his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, elevated the chapel to become a parish church, richly endowing it with relics and altars. Pope Nicholas V ordered Stephan Bodecker, then Prince-Bishop of Brandenburg, a collegiate church is a church endowed with revenues and earning estates, in order to provide a number of canons, called in canon law a College, with prebends. In this respect a collegiate church is similar to a cathedral, so the college of St. Erasmus chapel, called Domstift in German, bestowed the pertaining church its colloquial naming, Domkirche. Frederick Irontooth provided the College with estates, sufficient to supply eight canon prebendaries, on 20 January 1469, Dietrich IV, then Prince-Bishop of Brandenburg, invested eight clergymen, chosen by Frederick Irontooth, as collegiate canons with the prebends. Pauls Church, built ca. in 1345, on 28 May 1536 most of the Black Friars moved to a Dominican monastery in Brandenburg upon Havel. Joachim II Hector assigned the thus void, three-nave church building to the Collegiate Church of Our Lady, the Holy Cross, peter, Paul, Erasmus and Nicholas and enlarged the College to 12 prebendaries, bestowing two of them to canons taken on from the Dominican convent. From 1545 on the family of Hohenzollern used the church building also as their burial place. In 1538, a new western façade with two towers was attached to the church, which – due to its prior status as a church of a mendicant order – had no tower before. In the next year Joachim II Hector converted from Catholicism to Lutheranism, the collegiate church thus became Lutheran too, like most of the electoral subjects and all the churches in the Electorate. However, Joachim II Hectors ideas of Reformation were different from the modern ones, after his conversion he enriched the collegiate church with luxuriant furnishings, such as paraments, monstrances, relics, chasubles, carpets and antependia. In 1613, John Sigismund publicly confessed his Calvinist faith, so he and his family, except of his steadfastly Lutheran wife Anna, converted, while most of his subjects remained Lutherans. Being now a Calvinist church the patronage of the Holy Trinity was increasingly skipped, in 1667 the dilapidated double-tower façade was torn down and in 1717 Martin Böhme erected a new baroque façade with two towers. With effect of 1 January 1710 Cölln was united with Berlin under the latter name, in 1747 the Supreme Parish Church was completely demolished to clear space for the baroque extension of the Berlin Palace. On 6 September 1750 the new baroque Calvinist Supreme Parish Church was inaugurated, the electoral tombs were transferred to the new building
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Lustgarten
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The Lustgarten is a park on Museum Island in central Berlin, near the site of the former Berliner Stadtschloss of which it was originally a part. At various times in its history, the park has used as a parade ground, a place for mass rallies. After the devastation of Germany during the Thirty Years War, Berlin was redeveloped by Friedrich Wilhelm and his Dutch wife, in 1713, Friedrich Wilhelm I became King of Prussia and set about converting Prussia into a militarised state. In 1790, Friedrich Wilhelm II allowed the Lustgarten to be turned back into a park, in the early 19th century, the enlarged and increasingly wealthy Kingdom of Prussia undertook major redevelopments of central Berlin. A 13-metre high fountain in the centre, operated by an engine, was one of the marvels of the age. In 1871, the fountain was replaced by an equestrian statue of Friedrich Wilhelm III by Albert Wolff. The statue was unveiled on 16 June 1871, between 1894 and 1905, the old Protestant church on the northern side of the park was replaced by a much larger building, the Berlin Cathedral, designed by Julius Carl Raschdorff. During the years of the Weimar Republic, the Lustgarten was frequently used for political demonstrations, the Socialists and Communists held frequent rallies there. In August 1921,500,000 people demonstrated against right-wing extremist violence, after the murder of Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau, on 25 June 1922,250,000 protested in the Lustgarten. On 7 February 1933,200,000 people demonstrated against the new Nazi Party regime of Adolf Hitler, under the Nazis, the Lustgarten was converted into a site for mass rallies. In 1934, it was paved over and the statue removed. Hitler addressed mass rallies of up to a million people there, on 18 May 1942 a resistance group lead by Herbert Baum consisting mainly of Jewish men and women, tried to destroy a propaganda exhibition The Soviet Paradise in the Lustgarten. This resulted in the discovery of the group, the death of Baum in Gestapo detention, in a retaliation action, the Reich Main Security Office arrested 500 Jewish men at the end of May, and immediately murdered half of them. A memorial stone made by Jürgen Raue installed in 1981 commemorates the resistance group, in 1944 the statue of Friedrich Wilhelm III by Albert Wolff was melted down to reuse the metal in war production. By the end of World War II in 1945, the Lustgarten was a bomb-pitted wasteland, the German Democratic Republic left Hitlers paving in place, but planted lime trees around the parade ground to reduce its militaristic appearance. The whole area was renamed Marx-Engels-Platz, the City Palace was demolished and later replaced by the modernist Palace of the Republic on part of the site. A movement to restore the Lustgarten to its role as a park began once Germany was reunified in 1990. In 1997, the Berlin Senate commissioned the landscape architect Hans Loidl to redesign the area in the spirit of Lennés design, the Lustgarten now features fountains and is once again a park in the heart of a reunited Berlin
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