Dahlem Museen

Description:

• After extensive reorganizing, this complex of museums, occupying one mammoth structure in the heart of Dahlem's Freie Universität, contains institutions devoted to everything from ethnological collections to Far Eastern art.

  Occupying most of the main building is the Ethnologisches Museum, which is the one to visit if you have to skip the rest. This is the greatest ethnological collection on earth, totaling some 500,000 artifacts from all continents, even prehistoric America. Art and artifacts are displayed from Africa, the Far East, the South Seas, and South America. Many of the figures are ritualistic masks and are grotesquely beautiful. The Incan, Mayan, and Aztec stone sculptures alone equal the collections of some of the finest museums of Mexico. The best part is the collection of authentic boats from the South Pacific. The museum displays an intriguing assemblage of pre-Columbian relics, including gold objects and antiquities from Peru. The museum's Department of Music allows visitors to hear folk music recordings from around the globe.

  In the same complex is the Museum for Asian Art, which now includes both the Far Eastern collection as well as the Museum of Indian Art. Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst (Museum of Far Eastern Art) is a gem of a museum devoted primarily to Japan, Korea, and China, with artifacts dating back to as far as 3000 B.C. Launched in 1906 as the first Far Eastern museum of art in Germany, this museum is one of Europe's finest in presenting an overview of some of the most exquisite ecclesiastical and decorative art from the Far East. It is the equal of or better than similar collections in Paris. In essence, the museum represents the loot acquired during a massive "shopping expedition" the Germans took to Asia, where they even managed to garner the 17th-century imperial throne of China, all lacquered and inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The Japanese woodblock prints, each more exquisite than the next, are reason enough to visit.

  Germany's greatest collection of Indian art is on exhibit in the same building at the Museum für Indische Kunst, covering a span of 40 centuries. It's an international parade of some of the finest art and artifacts from the world of Buddhism, representing collections from such lands as Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, Nepal, and Tibet.

  Outside the Dahlem museum complex, and only a 5-minute walk away, Museum Europäischer Kulturen is devoted to the German people themselves -- not the aristocrats but the middle class and the peasant stock who built the country. It is a true "museum of the people." The exhibits go back 4 centuries, tracing how artisans and homemakers lived and worked. Household items are displayed along with primitive industrial equipment such as a utensil for turning flax into linen. Furnishings, clothing, pottery, and even items used in religious observances are shown, along with some fun and whimsical exhibits, including depictions of pop culture from the 1950s through the 1980s.

• © Frommer's 2012

Awards:

Frommer's

•  Highly Recommended 2010