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The Gemäldegalerie possesses one of the world’s finest collections of European art from the 13th to 18th century. After the collection was founded in 1830, it was systematically built up and perfected. The exhibition includes masterpieces by artists from every age of art history such as van Eyck, Bruegel, Dürer, Raphael, Tizian, Caravaggio, Rubens, Vermeer and Rembrandt.

The collection

This newly built museum is situated at the Kulturforum Potsdamer Platz. It has about 7,000 square metres of exhibition space. A complete tour of the 72 rooms covers almost two kilometres.

Two of the major sections are formed by Italian painting from the 13th to 16th century and Netherlandish painting of the 15th and 16th century.

Old German painting of the Late Gothic and Renaissance eras is represented by such great masters as Konrad Witz, Albrecht Dürer, Baldung Grien, Cranach and Holbein.

The octagonal Rembrandt room enjoys a key position at the heart of the museum. The sixteen works by this artist form one of the largest and highest quality collections of Rembrandt paintings. They are flanked by additional gems of Dutch and Flemish painting of the 17th century. Portraits, genre paintings, interiors, landscapes and still-lifes illustrate certain artists’ preferences for particular types of themes.

Italian, French, German and English painting of the 18th century is presented in six rooms. This splendid collection of paintings includes works by Canaletto, Watteau, Pesne and Gainsborough.

The main gallery contains one thousand masterpieces. These paintings are complemented by four hundred works in a study gallery on the lower floor.

Visitors also have access to a digital gallery with computerized information in German, English and French. Audio-tours are also available in German and English.

Tempelhof was first officially designated as an airport on 8 October 1923. Lufthansa was founded in Tempelhof on 6 January 1926.

The old terminal, originally constructed in 1927, received politicians and celebrities from around the world during the 1930s. As part of Albert Speer’s plan for the reconstruction of Berlin during the Nazi era, Prof. Ernst Sagebiel was ordered to replace the old terminal with a new terminal building in 1934.

The airport halls and the neighbouring buildings, intended to become the gateway to Europe, are still known as the largest built entities worldwide, and have been described by British architect Sir Norman Foster as “the mother of all airports”. With its façades of shell limestone, the terminal building, built between 1936 and 1941, forms a massive 1.2-kilometre long quadrant yet has a charmingly intimate feel; planes can taxi right up to the building and unload, sheltered from the weather by its enormous overhanging canopy. Passengers walk through customs controls and find themselves in a dazzlingly simple and luminous reception hall. Tempelhof is served conveniently by the U6 U-Bahn line along Mehringdamm and up Friedrichstraße (Platz der Luftbrücke station).

Zentralfiughafen Tempelhof-Berlin had an advantage of central location just minutes from the heart of Berlin and quickly became one of the world’s busiest airports. Tempelhof saw its greatest pre-war days during 1938-1939 when more than 52 foreign and 40 domestic aircraft arrived and departed daily.

The air terminal was designed as headquarters for Deutsche Lufthansa, the German commercial airline. As a forerunner of today’s modern airports, the building was designed with many unique features including giant arc-shaped hangars for aircraft parking. Although under construction for more than ten years, it was never finished because of World War II.

The building complex was designed to resemble an eagle in flight with semicircular hangars forming the bird’s spread wings. A mile long hangar roof was to have been laid in tiers to form a stadium for spectators at air and ground demonstrations.

Cinemaxx is the name of a company with several large multiplex cinemas in Berlin and across Germany.

The Cinemaxx on Potsdamer Platz plays english language films – which makes it a “have-to-be” place for expats that do not like translated films. In Germany it is standard that all films are completely translated into German.