Explorer Berlin

Madame Tussauds Berlin is a wax museum on Unter den Linden displaying more than 100 life-like wax figures of musicians, actors, athletes, politicians and historical figures. The figures are grouped into themed zones covering film and television, music, sport and history, with areas set up for photographs.

Pergamonmuseum. Das Panorama is a temporary exhibition hall on Museum Island, open since 2018. Its centrepiece is Yadegar Asisi's 360-degree panorama reconstructing the ancient city of Pergamon in the 2nd century AD, shown alongside original finds from the Pergamon excavations while the main Pergamonmuseum is closed for renovation.

A private museum on Leipziger Platz, opened in 2015 on the former Cold War dividing line between East and West Berlin. Around 1,000 objects trace espionage history from antiquity to today, including an Enigma machine and the poison-tipped umbrella used to kill the dissident Georgi Markov. Visitors can try a laser maze and code-breaking challenges.

The Bode Museum is a domed building on Berlin's Museum Island, built from 1898 to 1904 to plans by Ernst von Ihne and originally named the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum. It houses the Sculpture Collection, the Museum of Byzantine Art and the coin cabinet. Museum Island was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999.

The James Simon Gallery is the entrance building for Museum Island, designed by David Chipperfield and opened in 2019. Built on the site of the former Packhof between the Neues Museum and the Kupfergraben canal, it holds ticketing, a café, and rotating special exhibitions, and is named after art patron James Simon.

The Neues Museum on Berlin's Museum Island was built between 1843 and 1855 to designs by Friedrich August Stüler. Damaged in the Second World War and left in ruins for decades, it was restored by architect David Chipperfield between 1999 and 2009. It houses the Egyptian Museum and the Museum of Pre- and Early History.

A branch of the Swedish Fotografiska photography museum network, founded in Stockholm in 2010. The Berlin museum opened in September 2023 in the former Kunsthaus Tacheles building on Oranienburger Straße in Mitte, showing changing exhibitions of contemporary photography alongside a café, restaurant and rooftop bar.

A museum near Checkpoint Charlie devoted to the Trabant, the small car built in East Germany from 1957. Opened in 2014, it displays around twenty cars and three engines, from original P50, 600 and 601 models to modified versions including an armoured Trabant and a camper conversion with a roof tent.

The Altes Museum is a Neoclassical building on Berlin's Museum Island, designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel and built between 1825 and 1830 for King Frederick William III. Its colonnaded facade faces the Lustgarten. The museum houses the Antikensammlung, Berlin's collection of Greek and Roman antiquities.

The Alte Nationalgalerie is a temple-like building on Berlin's Museum Island, built between 1862 and 1876 to designs by Friedrich August Stüler and Johann Heinrich Strack. An equestrian statue of King Frederick William IV stands on its grand staircase. The gallery houses paintings and sculpture from the 19th century.

The Topography of Terror is a museum and memorial on Niederkirchnerstraße, on the former site of the SS and Gestapo headquarters during the Nazi era. Its exhibitions document the organisations behind Nazi persecution, alongside an outdoor trail beside a surviving stretch of the Berlin Wall. Excavated foundations of the former Gestapo buildings lie along an open-air trench.

The DDR Museum is an interactive museum on the River Spree in central Berlin, opposite Berlin Cathedral. Its exhibits recreate everyday life in East Germany, including a furnished prefabricated apartment and a Trabant driving simulator, drawing on a collection of more than 360,000 objects.

The Humboldt Forum is a museum of human history and culture inside the reconstructed Berlin Palace on Museum Island. It opened to the public in 2021 and houses the non-European collections of the Berlin State Museums, including the Ethnological Museum and the Museum of Asian Art. The building reconstructs three Baroque facades of the historic palace around a modern interior.

The Kunstgewerbemuseum, or Museum of Decorative Arts, is part of the Berlin State Museums and shows European applied arts from the Middle Ages to today, including furniture, fashion, glass, porcelain and jewellery. Its main collection is displayed at the Kulturforum building, with a second branch at Köpenick Palace.

A museum in Mitte opened in 2022, built around the private collection of Peter Janssen. Across 1,500 square metres it shows more than 900 objects, including around 40 full suits of samurai armour, 200 helmets and 160 swords, spanning the Kofun period to the Edo era. The museum also has a traditional tea house and a Noh theatre stage.

The Kupferstichkabinett at the Kulturforum is Germany's largest museum of prints and drawings, holding more than 500,000 prints and around 110,000 individual works on paper, including drawings, watercolours and pastels. Changing selections from the collection are shown in rotating exhibitions, since the works are too light-sensitive for permanent display.

Hamburger Bahnhof is a contemporary art museum in Berlin's Moabit district, housed in the former terminus of the Berlin–Hamburg railway. Part of the Berlin National Gallery, it shows post-1960s art, including large-scale installations, in its converted railway halls.

The Neue Nationalgalerie is a modern art museum at the Kulturforum, built by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and opened in 1968. Its glass-and-steel pavilion houses the Berlin National Gallery's 20th-century collection, including Expressionist, Bauhaus and post-war works. The building was renovated by David Chipperfield and reopened in 2021.

The Gemäldegalerie at the Kulturforum displays the Berlin State Museums' collection of European Old Master paintings from the 13th to 18th centuries. First opened in 1830, it moved into its current building in 1998. Highlights include works by Dürer, van Eyck, Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt and Vermeer.

A museum of plastinated human bodies in the base of Berlin's television tower, opened in 2015 with around 20 full-body specimens and up to 200 anatomical exhibits. The bodies are preserved by Plastination, a technique the anatomist Gunther von Hagens developed in the 1970s, and were donated for medical education to show organ systems and common diseases.