Neues Museum - Overview

Overview

The Neues Museum was the second museum to be built on Museum Island and was intended as an extension to house collections which could not be accommodated in the Altes Museum. Among these were collections of plaster casts, ancient Egyptian artifacts, the prehistoric and early historic collections (Museum der vaterländischen Altertümer), the ethnographic collection, and the collection of etchings and engravings (Kupferstichkabinett). It is thus the "original source" of the collections in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin and the Ethnological Museum of Berlin.

Moreover, the Neues Museum is an important monument in the history of construction and technology. With its various iron constructions, it is the first monumental building of Prussia to consistently apply new techniques made possible by industrialization. As a further innovation, a steam engine was used for the first time in construction in Berlin. Among other things, it was used to ram pilings into the building ground. The soft, spongy soil around the River Spree means that buildings in the central area of Berlin require deep foundations.