Neue Nationalgalerie

The Neue Nationalgalerie is two attractions in one: a great collection of twentieth-century art and one of the most important buildings of modern architecture. It was the last major work of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the former Bauhaus director who had left Germany in the 1930s, and when it opened in West Berlin in 1968 it gave the divided city a manifesto in glass and steel. The upper hall is a vast, column-free space enclosed by glass walls under a black steel roof that seems to float on just eight slender columns, and it is used for large single installations and exhibitions that change through the year. After decades of wear, the building was closed for a thorough restoration led by David Chipperfield Architects, the firm behind the rebuilt Neues Museum, and it reopened in 2021 looking as Mies intended. The permanent collection is downstairs, in the granite-clad base that opens onto a walled sculpture garden. It covers art from the early twentieth century onwards, with particular strength in German Expressionism and the art of the 1920s: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's Berlin street scenes, Max Beckmann, Otto Dix, George Grosz and the painters of the Weimar years, alongside Picasso, Klee, Kandinsky and the European avant-garde, and works from the decades after the Second World War. Because the presentations of the collection change, check what is on before you go, but the Berlin art of the 1920s is a highlight that rarely disappoints. The museum is open from Tuesday to Sunday, with a late opening until 8pm on Thursdays, and Tiqets sells timed entry as well as bundles with the Hamburger Bahnhof and other museums.

How to plan your visit: open from 10am, Tuesday to Sunday, closing at 6pm except on Thursdays, when it stays open until 8pm; closed on Mondays. Book a timed entry ticket online, especially when a big exhibition is in the upper hall, as these can draw queues. Allow around two hours for the collection and the current exhibitions. The Kulturforum is a short walk from Potsdamer Platz station, and the museum stands on its own podium at the edge of the Landwehr Canal, so it is easy to find.

Getting the most from it: walk around the outside first. The building is best understood from the terrace, where you can see how the roof floats over the glass hall and how the city reflects in the walls. Then visit the upper hall, which might hold anything from a monumental sculpture to an immersive installation, before going down to the collection rooms and the sculpture garden. The Thursday late opening is the most atmospheric time, when the lit glass hall glows against the evening sky. There is a cafe and a bookshop in the lower level. In the collection rooms, look for Kirchner's paintings of Potsdamer Platz and the street life of pre-war Berlin, which were made only a few hundred metres from where you are standing, and for the sharp, satirical portraits of the Weimar years by Dix and Grosz, which say more about the city between the wars than any history book. The sculpture garden, enclosed by granite walls, is a calm spot to finish.

Who it suits and what to pair it with: art and architecture lovers above all, who should consider it essential; couples looking for a stylish evening on a Thursday; and anyone curious about the Berlin of the 1920s, which the collection brings vividly to life. Families with teenagers will find the big installations engaging, and under-18s go free at the State Museums. Pair it with the Gemaeldegalerie next door at the Kulturforum, a walk to Potsdamer Platz and the Panoramapunkt, or the Hamburger Bahnhof, the State Museums' contemporary art space near the main station, with which Tiqets offers a combined ticket.