Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart

Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart is Berlin’s museum for contemporary art, presenting collections, special exhibitions, and events in a historic railway station building.

Planning your visit

The Hamburger Bahnhof was Berlin's railway terminus for Hamburg, built in 1846 and made redundant within twenty years — one of the oldest surviving station buildings in Germany, and empty for long enough to be repurposed as a museum of transport before becoming, in 1996, Berlin's principal contemporary art institution. The great vaulted train hall makes a spectacular exhibition space, and the scale suits large installation work in a way purpose-built galleries rarely manage.

The collection centres on the Marx and Flick holdings and covers the major names of the later twentieth century — Beuys above all, with a substantial dedicated presentation, alongside Warhol, Rauschenberg, Twombly, Kiefer and Richter — supplemented by photography, video and large-scale installation. The Rieckhallen, a long adjoining warehouse space, has hosted much of the contemporary programme, though its future has been the subject of a prolonged property dispute.

Temporary exhibitions are ambitious and frequently the reason to visit.

It sits near the Hauptbahnhof, walkable from central Mitte. Allow two hours. The main booking is an entrance ticket, also covered by the Berlin state museums pass. Current availability is shown below.