
Berlin · Moabit
Hamburger Bahnhof
A nineteenth-century railway terminus holding the contemporary collection of the nation
Beuys in the old freight halls, where the ceiling height does half the work
The last surviving terminus of Berlin's early railway age lost its trains in 1884 and gained the national contemporary collection in 1996. The proportions are the point: a station concourse gives a Beuys installation the air it needs, and the Rieckhallen alongside stretch the building into something closer to a street than a gallery.
The collection concentrates on the postwar period, with strong holdings of Beuys, Warhol, Kiefer and Rauschenberg, and the temporary programme takes bigger risks than the rest of the state museums combined.
The detail
Good to know
- Building
- Railway terminus of 1847
- Opened as museum
- 1996
- Strengths
- Beuys, Warhol, Kiefer, Rauschenberg
- Late night
- Thursday until 20:00
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