Top 9 Berlin Museums

Berlin is a city of art, artists and museums. More than 170 museums, including those on the famous museum island, put the treasures of the world on public display. Culturally minded visitors from all corners of the globe come to Berlin to see performances by leading orchestras – such as the internationally celebrated Berlin Philharmonic – and to attend ballets and operas at the three major opera houses. A multitude of theaters specializing in plays, variety, revue and cabaret offer stage entertainment in all its forms.

With over 170 museums in Berlin it is hard to choose which ones to see. In addition to Museum Island, here are the top 9 most popular museums in Berlin, Germany:

1. Deutsches Historisches Museum (German History Museum)
The German History Museum is the official national history museum of the Federal Republic of Germany. The museum’s objective is to present German history from its beginnings to the present day in terms of its international impact as well as its regional diversity.

2. Jewish Museum Berlin
The Jewish Museum is quite possibly one of the most exciting examples of contemporary architecture in Berlin. Opened on 9 September 2001, the form and style of the museum reflect a complex concept consisting of ciphers, codes and philosophical themes.

3. Gemäldegalerie (Masterpieces of occidential art)
The gallery at the Kulturforum at Potsdamer Platz shows masterpieces of old occidental art. It is home to one of the most important collections of European painters from the 13th to 18th centuries world-wide, and comprises approx. 2,700 masterpieces of all epochs of Italian art between the 14th and 18th centuries, Dutch painings of the 15th to 16th centuries, and old German masters of the late gothic and renaissance eras. In rooms suffused with daylight, world-famous paintings like Jan Vermeer’s ‘Young lady with string of pearls’ and one of the world’s largest collections of Rembrandt’s works beckon the visitor, as do paintings by van Eyck, Bruegel, Dürer, Raffael, Tizian, Caravaggio and Rubens.

4. Museum für Naturkunde (World's biggest dinosaur skeleton)
Visitors are greeted in the entrance area by the head of a giant dinosaur that appears to be looking through the wall. The dinosaur exhibition has recently been completely redesigned: the interactive multimedia display now shows life as it was 150 million years ago in Tendaguru, East Africa.

5. Martin-Gropius-Bau (International art in historical building)
The Martin-Gropius-Bau is Berlin's main exhibition hall and is one of the world’s leading exhibition venues. The building, which until 1989 was directly located at the Berlin Wall and once housed the Museum of Decorative Arts, is named after the man who built it, the great uncle of the famous Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius.

6. Deutsches Technikmuseum (Technology: on land, on water and in the air)
The German Technology Museum (Deutsches Technikmuseum) offers a comprehensive insight into technical cultural history in Germany. With its 26,000 sqm of floor space, the Technical Museum is one of the largest in Europe and carries on the tradition of other famous technology museums, which used to welcome visitors in Berlin before World War II.

7. Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum of Contemporary Art (Art in the train station)
The Hamburger Bahnhof is the former rail station for trains running between the capital and the hanseatic city of Hamburg. Its station building houses the museum for contemporary art, which belongs to the Nationalgalerie and counts as one of the world’s most successful exhibition spaces for contemporary art. Here, works can be found by artists such as Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys, Keith Haring as well as many innovative contemporary artists.

8. DDR Museum - FDJ, stasi, trabants, pre-fabricated high-rises – experience every-day life as it was in the old GDR in this unique museum
The GDR museum is one of the newest and most visited in Berlin. For a good reason: it is the only museum that deals exclusively with life in the former German Democratic Republic, while at the same time offering an objective perspective of the topics ‘stasi’ and ‘wall’, as well as various aspects of every-day life during that period.

9. Mauermuseum - Haus am Checkpoint Charlie (The Berlin Wall - history and events)
Today, the house at Checkpoint Charlie shows an almost incomprehensible number of original means and tools that people used in their escape out of the "DDR": from the hot-air balloon to the Trebant up to the chairlift.

Travel to Berlin, Germany with Celtic Tours World Vacations