If you don’t visit museums in the first few months after moving to a new city, according to the unspoken migrant code, you probably never will. It’s a bit like learning the local language; if you haven’t mastered it in the first two or three years, it’s probably not gonna happen. So stop lying to yourself and telling people “You’re gonna go back to language school one day – give it one final push” and all that. It’s over. You’re done, mate. It’s vorbei…
After 17 years of living in Berlin (still largely monolingual), a new exhibition finally drew me into the Altes Museum – Berlin’s first-ever museum. Back in 1825, the foundation stone was laid for what was then the Royal Museum, which is now celebrating its 200th year anniversary. And in commemoration of this historic occasion, the museum has put on a small, single-room exhibition titled Founded on Antiquity: Berlin’s First Museum, tucked away at the end of its Roman and Etruscan galleries.
The museum was less a gift to the people than a colonnaded vault of imperial ambition.
It’s a surprisingly meagre show, not much of a celebration at all. In keeping with the museum’s early style, the exhibits have been packed tightly together. The institution’s first acquisition turns out to be an ancient replica of a Greek sculpture: Hermes Richelieu from the 1st century BCE. Though repaired in 18th-century Rome, the replacement limbs of this naked youth have since been removed and lie uselessly on the ground beside it. The centrepiece of the exhibition appears to be a large white architectural model of the museum, showing the pointed poles of its foundations driven deep into Berlin’s marshy terrain.
Budget is clearly an issue. The only interactive elements are some pull-aside circles that attempt to show how attitudes to museums have changed since it first opened. The questions are absurdly dry: “Did the museum have toilets?” and “Were children allowed in the museum?”. But more interesting aspects are discussed in the featured interviews, including one with the curator, Elsa van Wezel, who talks about how the original ideals of the museum as a place of Humboldtian education gave way in the late 19th century to it becoming a kind of a repository, a treasure house for ancient masterpieces.
Which it is, of course. We go to antiquarian museums like this to see expensive old stuff. But there’s a symbolic charge to it as well. By the early 19th century, the British Museum had already stood for close to a century, the Louvre for decades; to compete with other European states, Prussia needed its own temple of arts. It’s no coincidence that the Altes Museum was positioned opposite the royal palace (now rebuilt as the Humboldt Forum) and beside the military arsenal and cathedral (Berliner Dom). Architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s design finished a choreographed set-piece of power, military might, divine authority and culture: the four pillars of empire. The museum was less a gift to the people than a colonnaded vault of imperial ambition.
💀 Why are so many human remains locked up in Berlin museums?
At the end of the exhibition, there’s a fun post-it note board, a worthy though somewhat flawed attempt for museum staff to listen to visitors’ feedback – something that the museum founders were clearly not doing when (spoiler alert) kids weren’t allowed in and toilets didn’t exist. “Mehr Schlongs”, reads one lurid green square with accompanying picture. Another, in a light, easy script, written with total sincerity: “It’s nice to see history. It’s so big!” Whether they meant the museum itself or the idea of history – that vast, tangled saga of humanity – either way, they’re not wrong.
- Founded on Antiquity: Berlin’s First Museum, Altes Museum, Mitte. Through May 3, 2026
