Neue Nationalgalerie

The Neue Nationalgalerie stands on Potsdamer Straße in the Tiergarten district, a steel-and-glass pavilion completed in 1968 as the final building designed by architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, its floating black steel roof supported on eight slender columns above walls of clear glass. Visitors approach across a raised granite plaza before descending into the main exhibition space below ground level, where the permanent collection of 20th-century European and American art is displayed, including works by Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, and Andy Warhol. The building reopened in 2021 after a six-year renovation by architect David Chipperfield that restored the structure to its original condition while modernizing climate control and accessibility, and the upper glass hall now hosts large-format temporary exhibitions and sculpture. A visit takes 1.5 to 2.5 hours, and the building's architecture is worth appreciating from outside as much as the collection inside, particularly the way the glass walls dissolve the boundary between the plaza and the gallery. Weekday afternoons are generally quieter than free Thursday evenings after 18:00, when the museum's no-cost admission draws considerably larger crowds. The plaza and sculpture garden are best photographed at dusk, when interior lighting makes the glass pavilion glow against the darkening sky.