Bode Museum

Rising straight out of the Spree at the northern tip of Museum Island, the Bode Museum's domed neo-Baroque building is one of Berlin's most recognisable landmarks. Designed by Ernst von Ihne, it opened in 1904 as the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum and was renamed in 1956 after Wilhelm von Bode, the art historian who shaped its collections. It forms part of the Museum Island UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Inside are three collections: the Sculpture Collection, the Museum of Byzantine Art and the Coin Cabinet, one of the largest numismatic collections in the world. The sculpture holdings are especially strong in Italian Renaissance and German late medieval work, with pieces by Donatello and Tilman Riemenschneider. Following Bode's original approach, sculpture is often shown alongside paintings and furniture of the same period. The Great Dome entrance hall, with its equestrian statue of the Great Elector, and the basilica hall, modelled on Florentine Renaissance churches, are as much a reason to come as the objects themselves.