This weekend Berlin is holding another Long Night of Museums. There are now events like this in more than 120 cities worldwide, but Berlin is home to the mother of all museum nights.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/G. Fischer
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It promises to be a balmy summer night — perfect conditions for the Long Night of Museums, which is taking place on August 31st for the 39th time in Berlin. From 6 in the evening until 2 in the morning, tens of thousands of people will be on the go. They'll walk from museum to museum or take one of the shuttle buses to the next venue. Smaller exhibition halls and galleries are also opening their doors, as are many of the capital's large museums and memorials.
The cultural night traditionally opens on Museum Island, this time with a dance performance on the large staircase outside the recently opened James Simon Gallery. In all, 75 Berlin museums are participating. 750 events are on the agenda: special guided tours, readings, film showings and workshops, plus culinary and musical events.
Top 10: The most visited museums in Berlin
What do tourists do in Berlin? Sightseeing, shopping, partying — but they also go to the city's more than 200 museums, memorials and exhibition halls. Here are the most popular:
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/Wolfram Steinberg
The Topography of Terror: 1.3 million visitors
Berlin's most visited memorial for years has been the Nazi Documentation Center not far from Potsdamer Platz. In 2019, 1.3 million visitors came here to find out about the extent of crimes committed by the Nazis throughout Europe. From 1933 to 1945, the Gestapo and SS, the most important authorities of Nazi terror, were located here.
Image: DW/M. Lenz
Berlin Wall Memorial: 1.2 million visitors
Where did the Berlin Wall stand? How did the Berliners live in the divided city from 1961 to 1989? The Berlin Wall Memorial on Bernauer Strasse is the second most popular place for visitors. It provides information on the background of the construction of the Berlin Wall and reminds visitors of the tragic fates of refugees trying to escape to the West.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/M. Gambarini
Neues Museum (New Museum): 828,000 Besucher
The mysterious Egyptian Queen Nefertiti is one of the most famous art treasures in the world and one of the outstanding exhibits in the Neues Museum. The building is part of Berlin's Museum Island and houses not only treasures from the time of the Pharaohs, but also from the Stone and Bronze Ages.
Image: picture-alliance/U. Baumgarten
Pergamon Museum: 804,000 visitors
It is a treasure trove of ancient, Islamic and Middle Eastern art. Although the Pergamon Altar, the heart of the building, is not currently on display due to construction work, the museum still ranks third among the most visited in Berlin. The Ishtar Gate and the processional street of Babylon are still freely accessible (photo). It is one of the "Seven Wonders of the Ancient World".
Image: picture-alliance/360-Berlin/J. Knappe
German Historical Museum: 775,000 visitors
The German Historical Museum on the boulevard Unter den Linden promises a journey through 2,000 years of German history. The spectrum ranges from Charlemagne's conquests to Luther's theses all the way to German reunification. The museum's collection comprises around 1 million objects. But don't worry; there are always only about 7,000 actually on display.
Image: Horst Rudel
Museum of Natural History: 737,000 visitors
The Brachiosaurus is the largest skeleton of a dinosaur in the world with a height of 13.27 meters (43.5 ft) and a favorite with visitors of the Natural History Museum. The collection was founded in 1810 as part of the Berlin University and today comprises some 30 million objects.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/B. Settnik
The Jewish Museum: 720,000 visitors
Architect Daniel Libeskind chose a rather dramatic architecture: Seen from above, the building looks like a broken Star of David. The Jewish Museum in Berlin-Kreuzberg provides an overview of 1,700 years of German-Jewish history.
Image: picture-alliance/dpa/akg-images/D.E. Hoppe
German Museum of Technology: 635,000 visitors
A Rosinenbomber (Raisin Bomber), which is what Berliners called the Western Allied (American and British) aircraft that brought in supplies by air to West Berlin during the Soviet Berlin Blockade in 1948/1949, is what the museum near Potsdamer Platz is all about. The exhibits include windmills, steam locomotives, ships and the world's first computer, built in 1936 by Berlin inventor Konrad Zuse.
What was life like in the former East Germany, what did people's everyday life feel and look like? The DDR Museum in Berlin-Mitte aims to convey an impression of this. Visitors can, for example, sit in the East-German Trabant car, stroll through an originally furnished prefabricated concrete apartment or take a look at a Stasi secret police surveillance room.
Image: DDR Museum, Berlin 2019
Charlottenburg Palace: 548,000 visitors
In tenth place in the Berlin Museum ranking is a masterpiece of Prussian rococo art: the former summer palace of Sophie Charlotte, the first Queen of Prussia. Magnificent festival halls and living rooms, precious porcelains, paintings, silverware and the Prussian crown insignia can be admired here.
Image: Fotolia/chaya1
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A marketing idea becomes an export hit
The first time the event was held, in the winter of 1997, it was on a much smaller scale: 18 institutions took part in the first Long Night of Museums, including the Natural History Museum, the German Historical Museum, the Berlinisches Galerie Museum of Modern Art, the Martin-Gropius-Bau exhibition hall and Charlottenburg Palace. The idea of offering unusual opening times came from marketing specialists. The aim was to attract more locals and tourists to the city's museums. It was an immediate success. More than 30,000 visitors flocked to that first Long Night of Museums. The second time, in August 1997, 27 institutions took part, and the next record number of curious visitors was set: 50,000.
And the marketing hit also made the rounds internationally. There are now long museum nights in more than 120 cities worldwide: from London, Paris and Amsterdam to Bratislava and Buenos Aires.
Plenty for both regulars and newcomers
In Berlin the concept has lost none of its appeal. On the contrary: the Long Night of Museums is attracting more and more fans. Surveys showed that 54 percent of last year's visitors were there for the first time. This summer, ten new museums are joining in, among them the re-opened Pergamon Panorama, the Berlin New Synagogue, Biesdorf Palace, the district of Zehlendorf's local museum and an open-air touring exhibition “Der Krieg und Ich,” in connection with a new TV drama series about World War II as seen through the eyes of children in Europe at the time.
Bauhaus for everyone
On the Bauhaus Trail in Berlin
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This year's Long Night of Museums also kicks off a festival, Bauhaus Week Berlin, with an exibition in shop windows on the history of the famous art and design school, yoga courses on roof terraces and an open-air film series. During the Long Night, for instance, you can look at famous designs by Bauhaus artists at the KPM royal porcelain factory, debate the authenticity of Bauhaus lamps in the Werkbund Archive Museum of Things, or go to the Kulturforum and test whether design classics such as Marcel Breuer's steel tube chair are comfortable as well as stylish.
