Bode-Museum

Next stop in this treasure-trove of an island the Bode Museum right on the island’s edge. The Bode-Museum looks as if it is rising out of the water at the northern tip of the island. The building was created between 1898 and 1904 by Ernst Eberhard von Ihne, and was initially called the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum in the style of Wilhelmine Baroque.

The palace-like edifice spreads over the triangular stretch of land north of the railroad line which went into operation in 1882. Visitors can reach the entrance of the Bode-Museum via the Monbijoubrücke. The latter links the Museum Island to the quarter around Oranienburger Strasse, and also connects the tip of the island to the western bank of the Kupfergraben.

Like a castle set on a lake, the Bode-Museum rises above the Spree River. This grand building was magnificently reopened in 2006 after several years of complete renovation. Today the museum houses the Sculpture Collection of works dating up to ca. 1800 and the Museum of Byzantine Art, as well as the Numismatic Collection. The exhibition rooms of the Bode-Museum are lavishly decorated, inspired by Italian Renaissance and Baroque.

Wilhelm von Bode, the legendary director of the museum, had devised the building, which opened in 1904 under the name of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum. The museum opened a space for the Sculpture Collection and the Old Master Paintings. The ground floor, illuminated by incidental light from the sides, was mainly used for the presentation of sculptures and selected paintings.

The impressive skylight-lit halls of the upper floor were primarily intended for the presentation of paintings. In contrast to the separation of genres that was customary at the time, sculpture and painting were combined in manifold ways in the cabinets on the Spree and Kupfergraben side of the building.  More