Sunny! Berlin, as do other cities, looks so much better in the sun....
Back to the James Simon Galerie..
This is essentially a building that links both the Neues Museum with the Pergamon Museum and provides an entrance to both; the Pergamon on the upper ground floor and the Neues in a new basement link..
The Pergamon Museum has been under a comprehensive re-construction project since 2014. Originally the work was meant to be completed at the end of 2019, now the anticipated opening date is 2023 with the corresponding increase in costs. Only one wing of the original museum is open. The intention is to create a fourth wing, with new underground links to the other museums on the island.
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| Stair down to the Neues lower ground floor entrance.. |
Arriving at the new lower ground floor entrance, staff are ready to scan your entrance ticket.. Looking for the ticket in my wallet, I ended up presenting the BMW museum entrance ticket, forgetting that the oversized ticket was kept elsewhere.. The staff member looked very confused, scanned the barcode and let me through. At the time I hadn't realised that I had offered the wrong ticket.
So now you know, the BMW museum ticket works in the Neues too......
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neues_Museum
I have been to the Neues before, but the visit was interrupted by calls from clients and the office. Now no such disruption. David Chipperfield won the open competition with the concept of retaining as much of the remaining building as possible, expressing new fabric insertions with a simple palette of materials. It is a remarkable building that retains galleries that survived the destruction and links these with the new... Opened by Angela Merkel in November 2009.
This approach was not with criticism.. many people felt the museum should be re-constructed as a copy of the original museum..
https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/iAIyOD6OJpqqKA?hl=en
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| Fragments of the original wall paintings of the Egyptian Court... |
The main entrance stair hall..
Original top floor galleries.. The cases are also original but would have housed different artifacts.
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| I always wanted a Greek helmet when young... |
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| Late Bronze Age ceremonial hat.. 1000 - 800BCE.. an astronomical calendar |
It is not allowed to take photos of Nefertiti in the room and even of the room itself.. You have to stay outside behind a line so have to wait until other visitors have moved away.
This is really where a proper camera, rather than your phone camera, would come into its own.
https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/ZQKiSnxV4cRAIw?hl=en
Next door to Nefertiti...
The cupola gallery on the opposite end of the museum didn't survive the construction. Chipperfield has re-interpreted the coffered cupola as a brick dome..
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| The cupola in the 1980's... |
This time trying to use the BMW museum ticket didn't work.. flustered by the line waiting to enter behind, I found the correct ticket....
Designed to house the expanding collection of artifacts excavated by German archaeologists, worked commenced in 1910 and finished in 1930. It is an interesting study of how archaeology, and particular German archaeology, removed whole buildings from the lands they were excavating.. As we have a continuous debate on whether the Elgin marbles should be returned to Athens, does Germany have similar debates over the treasures located in the Pergamon and the Neues?
One wing of the museum is currently open.. The ancient near east and the museum of Islamic art.
The processional street of Babylon..
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| Model of the original processional street. |
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| A mixture of original and 'new' tiles... |
The street leads onto the Miletus Gate..
The room that houses the Pergamon Alter is not open to the public...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pergamon_Altar
Other Assyrian exhibits....
For the benefit of visitors in the 1930's the archaeological sites were painted to provide a atmospheric backdrop to the exhibits...
The Museum of Islamic Art...
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| The future.... |
The Aleppo room.. all the walls from a Christian house painted around the 1600's
Out into the sunshine to walk to the Reichstag for my 15.30 afternoon appointment..
but stopped to see this building close to the Neues Museum.. The Hungarian College in Berlin..
https://www.flickr.com/photos/collegiumhungaricumberlin/albums/72157685854495715
....and then to the Bundestag.. important to arrive on time...
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| These are the other visitors in my group, most queuing with me yesterday for a ticket.... |
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| The view back from the steps... |
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| The outer reception hall.... waiting for the large lift to take us to the roof... |
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| Looking down into one of the courtyards.. |
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| The open top... the whole of the glass dome is essentially open to the elements. |
While it is open at the top with gaps at the base of the roof to create a heat stack, it was really hot...
Waiting for the lift to take us back down, an alarm went off.. looking around a staff member rushed up.. and took my audio link off me. I had forgotten to give it back.. oops..
Back down... time is limited on the roof.. I looked into the assembly. All the chairs were missing.. obviously summer recess..
Once down I decided to visited a area of Berlin, in the eastern part of the city where the MCM travel guru, Ellen who can put Lonely Planet and other travel guides to shame.. had advised me to visit and look for a particular cafe.. The Hackescher Markt area...
Some wonderful renovated buildings now the home of small specialist shops and restaurants...
I found the cafe suggested.... Oxymoron...
I sat in the courtyard with the sun setting having a wonderful meal, watching people watching us diners..
Reality, in the form of work, had barged into my travels while travelling through Germany and I needed to cut short my stay in Berlin and northern Germany and return back to the UK before the end of the week.. A long journey back beckoned....
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