ABSTRACT
The Neues Museum in Berlin was constructed between 1843 and 1855 to house the state collection of ancient and classical art. It was the second museum constructed on the Museumsinsel, the northern part of an island in the Spree River that today houses five state museums. Both the shape and decoration of the different rooms represented historicized styles, forming an aesthetic entity, with the works of art exposed in the room, and was in line with the educative role of the museum. In the 1920s, the museum has gone through a renovation and slight adaptation, and some of the interior decorations have been covered to create more neutral exhibition spaces. The level of intervention differs among various parts of the building depending on their condition, moving from a strictly ‘scientific’ conservation and restoration, to recomposing the historic layout of the exhibition rooms, to creating completely new spaces.
