Towards a 21st-century natural history museum (from 1990)
A museum on the former border
Anyone standing in front of the main entrance to the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin today looks out onto one of the city’s main thoroughfares. There is hardly anything to remind one that, for almost 40 years, the museum stood right on the border with West Berlin.
At that time, Invalidenstraße ended in a dead end, and the neighbouring underground station on the corner of Invalidenstraße and Chausseestraße remained closed for more than three decades. It has been back in operation since 1991, and in 2009 it was given its current name, ‘Naturkundemuseum’.
In 1993 and 1994, the museum underwent a fundamental reorganisation. It became a central institute of Humboldt University of Berlin.
Between 2005 and 2007, the museum modernised large parts of its exhibition spaces with the support of the Lotto Foundation. A new ventilation system was installed and the glass roofs were refurbished. The museum carried out extensive conservation work on the dinosaur skeletons in the Great Hall and rearranged them in accordance with the latest scientific findings.
Member of the Leibniz Association
Another significant step followed in 2009. Due to its internationally recognised research achievements in the fields of biological and geoscientific evolution and biodiversity, the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin left Humboldt University. It became part of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Association, or Leibniz Association for short.
Since then, the institution has borne the full name:
- Museum für Naturkunde – Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Research
With this move, the museum became a scientifically and legally independent foundation under public law.
New exhibitions in new formats
With more than 30 million objects and a strong international reputation, the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin is today one of the world’s leading research museums. At the same time, war damage and decades of resource shortages continue to leave their mark on the building to this day. A lack of space, outdated technology and poor conditions for the collections make a comprehensive refurbishment urgently necessary.
The partial refurbishment of the exhibition spaces (2004–2007) was followed by the reconstruction of the east wing, which had been destroyed during the Second World War. This is where the wet collection found a new home. What makes it special is that it is permanently open to the public. For the first time, a natural history museum has thus made a scientific part of its collection continuously accessible to the public. Like the recently opened biodiversity wall in the ‘Evolution in Action’ exhibition, the wet collection quickly became a major attraction.
The subsequent construction phase in the central wing of the main building improved storage conditions for the dry collections, optimised workflows, and created workspaces and laboratories. In 2026, the first galleries in the central wing will offer insights into the research collection of mammalian skulls as well as deer and antlered animals.
Evolving into a 21st-century museum
The current phase of construction in the west wing is a logical continuation of this development. It is creating new workspaces, teaching facilities and educational areas. At the same time, modernised exhibition and display areas are being created.
By 2026, only around 20 per cent of the historic building stock will have been comprehensively renovated. With the support of the Bundestag and the Berlin House of Representatives, the Future Plan – serving as a blueprint for the museum’s evolution – offers, for the first time, the opportunity to modernise and further develop the entire site in a manner that respects its heritage, is sustainable, energy-efficient and accessible. In parallel, a new collection and research centre is being built in Adlershof, which will in future offer optimal conditions for collection care, research and international collaboration.
The Museum Evolution thus forms the foundation for a natural history museum of the 21st century – open, interactive, sustainable and equally relevant to both research and society.
