1859
Museum Island
The new museum opens
Friedrich August Stuler's building becomes the second museum on today's Museum Island and a stage for Egyptian, prehistoric and classical collections.
BerlinWalk timeline
A quick timeline for reading the building before you go inside: Prussian ambition, Nefertiti, war damage, decades as a ruin and the restoration that kept the scars visible.
Friedrich August Stuler's building becomes the second museum on today's Museum Island and a stage for Egyptian, prehistoric and classical collections.
The Amarna finds enter Berlin after the excavations funded by James Simon. The famous bust is later donated to the Egyptian Museum in 1920.
The bust goes on public display in the converted Amarna Courtyard, beginning the Berlin museum career that still shapes the building today.
Bombing destroys major parts of the building. For decades, the Neues Museum remains the most dramatic ruin on Museum Island.
David Chipperfield Architects and Julian Harrap develop a careful restoration: new material fills gaps without pretending the damage never happened.
The Neues Museum reopens, Nefertiti returns to the building and Museum Island has all five exhibition venues open again for the first time since 1939.