Charlottenburg

For the celebrations marking the 750th anniversary of the founding of the city of Berlin in 1987, the museums in Charlottenburg experienced an unprecedented flood of tourists. Some 1.6 million people visited the Ägyptisches Museum, the Antikenmuseum, the Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte and the Galerie der Romantik. The exhibitions in Schloss Charlottenburg and in the former officer’s barracks in front of it, designed by August Stüler, had gradually been gaining a higher profile ever since the 1960s. After the reunification of the Staatliche Museen, though, the (West) Berlin archaeological collections moved to the Museumnsinsel, with the Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte following suit in 2009. The “Romantics” also received a spot in the Alte Nationalgalerie. While Museum Berggruen initially drew in large audiences, more and more, the tourists followed the collections to the Museumsinsel, and the museum precinct in Charlottenburg grew ever quieter. With the Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg and the Bröhan-Museum run by the city of Berlin, today, the area primarily lures lovers of Modernist art.