Just 17 years passed between the start of construction of the first main building on Berlin’s Museum Island, designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, and the second, designed by his pupil Friedrich August Stüler. Nevertheless, this seemed reason enough to call the former simply the “Altes” (old) and the latter the “Neues” (new).

In terms of construction, the two buildings seem to be separated by far more than 17 years.

While Schinkel had largely developed his construction from the classical foundation of solid and timber construction, Stüler’s late classicist masterpiece contrasted this with a completely new structural concept.