Kulturforum

The Kulturforum occupies a stretch of the Tiergarten district between the Landwehr Canal, the Großer Tiergarten and Potsdamer Platz. The planning goes back to a 1958 competition, when West Berlin set out to build a cultural counterweight to Museum Island, which had ended up on the eastern side of the divided city. The defining voice is the organic, expressive architecture of Hans Scharoun, whose Philharmonie (1960 to 1963) became world famous for its tent-like curved roof and its concert hall built on the vineyard principle.

Around the Philharmonie and the later chamber music hall (1984 to 1987) sits an unusual density of institutions. The Neue Nationalgalerie, a glass and steel temple by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1965 to 1968), shows classical modern art. The Gemäldegalerie (1992 to 1998) holds one of the most significant collections of European painting from the 13th to the 18th century. Add to that the Museum of Decorative Arts, the print room, the art library, the Museum of Musical Instruments, plus Scharoun's striking state library and the neoclassical St. Matthew's Church of 1846.

For a visit, pick one or two houses deliberately, because there is no realistic way to do it all in a day. A concert at the Philharmonie plus a walk through the Gemäldegalerie is a well-balanced pairing. A new museum called berlin modern, by the architects Herzog & de Meuron, is currently going up on the central open space, intended to present 20th-century art and further raise the profile of the area.