The Long Night of Museums- Berlin 🌙

Once a year Berlin's galleries, museums and other cultural hot spots open their doors to the public at night for the famous 'Lange Nacht Der Museen' (Long Night of Museums).

The first event took place in 1997 and has grown in popularity year after year, and the institutions taking part have risen dramatically.

Seeing its appeal, other countries have adopted the idea- and now 120 cities in Europe offer a museum night.

This year the event in Berlin took place on the 19th of August and saw over 100 museums and institutions offer entrance between 6pm and 2am.

In addition to this there were also music and dance performances which could be enjoyed in venues all around the city.

Admission to the event was a mere €18, a very impressive fee considering the average admission charge to a museum in the city is about €10.

This price also includes free travel around the city on special shuttle buses which transports you from one museum to the next which is a great way to see the city by night.

With so many options to explore, we were spoiled for choice with places to see. Here are a few that we managed on the night!

German Cinematheque:

Situated in the centre of Potsdamer Platz, this was a good starting point to our tour. As a bit of a film buff, it is a museum I have been meaning to visit for a long time and it didn't disappoint.

The museum has a very contemporary and stylised aesthetic and the displays are very cohesive and well put together.

The most visually stunning room is at the very beginning of the tour and features mirrors and video screens depicting famous scenes from German films throughout history.

Further on in the tour there are rooms and areas dedicated to legendary German films such as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari and Metropolis and there are some amazing set pieces, posters and models that film fans like me will geek out to!

There is also a whole room dedicated to the German icon, Marlene Dietrich, which contains lots of rare photographs and costumes belonging to the trailblazing star.

As well as studies of particular films and celebrities, the museum also offers insight into the political changes in Germany's history and how cinema was impacted by it and reflected it.

Altes National Galerie:

This museum contains some of the most stunning art work in Berlin, possessing one of the largest collections of 19th-century sculptures and paintings in Germany

Part of the Berlin National Gallery, it boasts an amazing collection of Neoclassical and Romantic (by artists such as Caspar David Friedrich, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, and Karl Blechen), Impressionist (eg. Édouard Manet and Claude Monet) and early Modernist artwork (including Adolph von Menzel, Max Liebermann and Lovis Corinth).

On of the most notable and beautiful works is Johann Gottfried Schadow's Prinzessinnengruppe, a double statue of princesses Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and Frederica of Prussia (pictured below right).

It is a breathtaking collection in a beautiful building and one could spend hours looking around, but alas we had many more places to go!

Neues Museum:

Situated close to the Altes National Galerie on Museum Island is the Neues Museum which holds a brilliant collection of Egyptian and early history collections.

Amongst the fascinating treasures of this museum are a myriad of Egyptian artifacts, tools, clothing, jewellery and sarcophagi.

One display explores the inexplicable similarities between early Chinese and Egyptian cultures, who though unaware of each other, display incredible similarities in culture and artistic style.

The main feature of the museum is the famous bust of Nefertiti, which is displayed in the middle of a room on it's own and is incredible to behold.

Urban Nation- Museum for Urban Contemporary Art

This exhibition was actually more of an opening night for the venue, and took place across the road from where the actual museum will be. While there were only a few pieces on display, and a few things outside, there was a fun vibe and a free bar which is always a winner in my book! We only stayed for one beer though as time was of the essence and we still had so much to see.

The artworks were impressive and really made me eager to go back to visit the main exhibit once it opens.

The Wall: Asisi Panorama Die Mauer:

I won't say much about this as I have previously posted about it for the colorchallenge, but it was a really unusual and beautiful exhibit. If you are curious have a look at my previous posts for more information :)

Jewish Museum:

This was one of the more sombre stops along our journey of museums, but one that we had to visit.

The exhibition space was underground, and the layout of the grey concrete halls were imposing and asymmetric to give the visitor a sense of disorientation and claustrophobia.

The most poignant of these symbolic spaces is Menashe Kadishman's 'Shalekhet' (Fallen Leaves), which is made up of 10,000 faces with open mouths which have been cut out of iron plates and depict people of all ages.

Visitors are permitted to walk over the plates which creates loud, reverberating sounds which echo through the chamber. The sculptures stir painful memories of the victims of war.

Berlinische Galerie:

Just down the road is the Berlinsiche Galerie, a museum of modern art and photography.

The gallery contains an impressive array of art installations, artwork and photographs in an impressive setting.

Museum of Natural History:

This museum mostly focuses on animals, and there are a lot on show. By that I mean taxidermied animals which, to be honest make me feel sick after a while!

I understand that it can be of educational importance to preserve some animals but the sheer number of stuffed animals and specimens in jars in this collection is quite excessive. I did however enjoy the dinosaur exhibit as it had some very impressive skeletons :)

Zeiss Gross Planetarium:

We ended our museum tour here with the planetarium show (which started at 2.15am!).

It was a laser show that was set to music and was a perfect way to end the night as we had been rushing around from place to place since 6pm and this gave us a chance to relax for a bit!

During our trip we also visited The Curry Wurst Museum, but sadly I didn't get any photos of that. It was a fun little stop along the way and had games and activities that were Currywurst themed.

We also tried but failed to go to the Dali Museum, we went there at around 6.30pm and again at around 9pm but both times the queue was extremely long so I'd advise people to arrive early if they want to go in future.

There were lots of other places we wanted to visit including the German Spy Museum, The Hemp Museum and The Ann Frank Museum but we ran out of time.

I guess we'll see you there next year!

I hope you enjoyed reading this, if you did please upvote, comment and follow me on @lolzwithlisa for more travel posts 😊

Have you done a museum night in any other cities? Tell me about it in the comments!

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