Altes Museum

The Altes Museum (German for Old Museum), is one of several internationally renowned museums on Berlin's Museum Island in Berlin, Germany. The museum was built between 1825 and 1828 by the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel in the neoclassical style to house the Prussian Royal family's art collection. Until 1845, it was called the Royal Museum.

The building uses the Greek Stoa in Athens as a model. The museum uses the Ionic Order to articulate the front, which is the only part of the exterior with any visual sign of the Orders; the other three remaining facades are of brick and stone banding. The body of the building is raised on a plinth, giving the building a greater stature as well as preventing the risk of damage to the artwork from damp or flooding, for which the island was renowned.

The original dome was an exact hemisphere, modelled on the Roman Pantheon. It was made invisible to the exterior observer because of the museum's proximity to the Berlin Cathedral; the museum was not meant to compete with the cathedral's dome.

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