One of Berlin's best-known attractions, the Museumsinsel (or Museum Island) is a complex of five historic art museums located on an island in the Bree River, within the city's Mitte district. The museums are the Altes Museum, built in 1830; the Neues Museum, built in 1859, and recently reconstructed by David Chipperfield; the Alte Nationalgalerie, completed in 1876; the Bode Museum, which opened in 1904; and the Pergamon Museum, built in 1930. The collective holdings of these five museums are among the world's finest, but the museums themselves are all breathtaking architectural specimens, as UNESCO recently recognized by designating the Museumsinsel a World Cultural heritage site. Until now, this unique ensemble of museums has never been thoroughly documented. In this volume, architectural photographer Maximilian Meisse celebrates the rich variety of the Museumsinsel. As architect Hans Kollhoff writes in his preface, Meisse's photographs "create an urban crown for Berlin."
