Berlin...23rd July..

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. 

Stair down to the Neues lower ground floor entrance..

I decided to visit the Neues Galerie first (due to the Pergamon entrance queue). 
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

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. 

I always wanted a Greek helmet when young...

Late Bronze Age ceremonial hat.. 1000 - 800BCE.. an astronomical calendar 

 Reconstructed galleries where sufficient structure and materials could be re-used.

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. 

 The Nefertiti room occupies a cupola gallery to one end of the building. Most of the coffered structure remains; it is a shame that photos aren't allowed in the room...

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..

The cupola in the 1980's...

Leaving the museum and walking back to the James Simon Galerie and the entrance to the Pergamon Museum..

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..

Model of the original processional street. 

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...

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...

These are the other visitors in my group, most queuing with me yesterday for a ticket....

The view back from the steps...

The outer reception hall.... waiting for the large lift to take us to the roof...

Looking down into one of the courtyards..

The open top... the whole of the glass dome is essentially open to the elements. 

 Walking up the ramp.....

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....

Berlin...22nd July..

An essential morning of 'admin', reading and looking at the rain falling and deciding when to leave the apartment situated in the leafy Karlshorst district in the south-east part of the city. 

Finally after lunch, the rain stopped and taking the 'S' bahn (S3 line) into the centre, I decided to plan for tomorrow by booking tickets for the Neues Galleries and access into the Bundestag and to amble through the centre from east to west starting at Alexanderplatz and finishing at the Bundestag.

I wanted to travel up the Berliner Fernsehturm (television tower) but the waiting time was nearly two hours and worried that once I did the weather would limit the view i decided not to. Completed in 1967,at a height of 368m with a viewing gallery at 203m, it is the highest structure in Berlin and Germany.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernsehturm_Berlin

St Marienkirche with the television tower behind. 

 Walking on across the Spree onto the island, the old city of Koln.. Colln.. the twin city with Altberlin, only formally joined in 1710 to become the capital of Prussia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%C3%B6lln


The history of the site of the Berlin Schloss reflects the story of Berlin including the political changes since the end of the war. Severely damaged, including a devastating fire that gutted the interiors, the site was boarded up and finally demolished following the decision of the SED to create a new plaza, the Marx-Engels Platz with a large grandstand, which was used for enormous displays expounding the merits of the GDR. A 'Palace of the Republic' was constructed on one side. 

The steel structure was covered with sprayed asbestos, which at the time concerned those that had to work in the building. With the unification, the question of what should happen to the plaza and the building became a theme of how to absorb both cultures into the unified state. The building was closed, the interiors gutted to remove all the asbestos and finally a decision was made to demolish the building and to construct a building reflecting the historic site. This became the Humboldt Forum a new state museum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_Forum

The cost of the Forum has been covered by the state while the costs of the facades is being covered by private finance.

https://berliner-schloss.de/en/palace-history/short-architectural-history/


When I was last in Berlin in 2016, the building was already well underway with the concrete facades ready to receive the facade finishes. Behind the traditional looking facade, it's all concrete. The design of the facades, with the contemporary facade looking towards the Spree, has been particularly contentious. The original building was a collection of buildings constructed over the previous 300 years. The decision to mimic the original facades is mainly a response to the view from the Unter den Linden/Bundesstrasse where road kinks to enable two sides of the building to be visible.

On the opposite side of the Bundesstrasse is the Berliner Dom. This church was inaugurated in 1905 as part of the re-organisation of the Island. Again, severely damaged during the war, the building was repaired, piecemeal between after 1945 with the nave re-inaugurated in 1993. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Cathedral

Two buildings I walked past along the Bundesstrasse before leaving the avenue to visit the Museum Island were the Neue Wache (War Remembrance Building) and the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, the Berlin State Opera Building.

The Neue Wache is a building designed by Schinkel and Sachs..formally a guard house, now the memorial for the victims of war and dictatorship.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neue_Wache

The Berlin State Opera building; the Staatsoper Unter den Linden

Looking down the Unter den Linden towards the Brandenburg Gates

Walking away from the Unter den Linden to the Museum Island area to buy a ticket for tomorrow. It was too late today to see all the museums I was interested in. 

Alte National Galerie

In particular, I wanted to look around the finally completed new entrance to the galleries named the James Simon Gallerie, designed by David Chipperfield more tomorrow.

Translucent stone used on the James Simon Galerie. The marble stone is cut to approximately 6mm thick and applied (laminated) into the glass unit ..... The translucent stone for Project 2020 will be much better...

I bought the ticket for tomorrow. There were no queues but it was late in the afternoon. Tomorrow will be completely different.

Ticket.. large enough not to confuse this with a cark parking ticket......

I popped into a Mercedes showroom on Unter Den Linden to see this Mercedes 280 SE 3.5 'Cabriolet'.. beautiful.

Reaching the wet Pariser Platz and the Brandenburg Gate (Brandenburger Tor..).
The symbolic site of the division between East and West Germany and subsequently the symbol of unity and peace.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandenburg_Gate

Finally to the Reichstag, home of the Bundestag to queue up on the Scheidemannstrasse with my drivers licence to book a time slot to visit the glass dome tomorrow. 
It is free to visit, but you need to give proof of identity first which I assume is checked before you enter the following day or when you decide to visit. 

Finally I walked back to the Bahnhof Friedrichstrasse to catch the S3 back to the apartment. 
Tomorrow will be sunny.... 

On the Road to Berlin...21st July

From Dresden a straightforward run.. listening to Kraftwerk on the autobahn...  A couple of items that to muse on...

Firstly road protocol in Germany. As mentioned before, there have been many roadworks while in Germany; the consequence of expecting great roads to travel on. But the interesting item was when stopping and crawling through the next set was how everyone moved to the edge of their lanes, allowing a gap for emergency vehicles or police to pass through.

This may be a mandatory requirement for German drivers but I couldn't help thinking what would happen in other European countries.. Having driven in most on this trip, the Scandinavian countries would understand but for most others, this space would be immediately filled with cars trying to find an advantage. In the UK though, we would  purposely drive close to the white line to stop anyone getting an advantage.. understanding Brexit..

To finish on this Brexit theme.. sorry.... a photo taken at a stop before my apartment in Berlin...

Everywhere I have been to since leaving the UK.. they all think we are mad.. including the nationalist and right wing societies of the former eastern block.... They like to complain like 'mad' but are not stupid enough to leave...

Tomorrow Berlin...