Her name means "the beautiful one will come": Nefertiti. And the promise is true, because since the autumn of 2009 the beautiful Egyptian lady has returned to her traditional pedestal at the Neues Museum on Berlin’s Museum Island. The once superbly fitted building of 1859, which was destroyed during the war and spent six decades as "Berlin’s most beautiful ruin", has finally been returned to its original purpose.
The Neues Museum is breathtaking; perhaps even Germany’s most beautiful museum building. But, the Neues Museum makes no attempt to deny its history. The decimated frescos, masonry and decorations are not being glossed over with a splendid new veneer. The breaks between old and new remain visible, almost painfully, but honestly so. The reopening is a grand occasion, producing a barrage of camera flashlights, interviews and news reports that circle the globe. Journalists tell their audiences about the exciting juxtaposition of classicist and contemporary design created by British star architect David Chipperfield. And again the name appears, which is ubiquitous in Berlin but still more or less unknown to the majority of people: Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation), or simply SPK.
Visitors to Berlin encounter the foundation’s logo with the Prussian eagle in many places. 16 Berlin museums, such as the world famous Painting Gallery and the Pergamon Museum, are SPK member institutions. Together with the foundation’s other institutions, the Berlin State Library, the Secret State Archives of the Prussian Cultural heritage Foundation, the Ibero-American Institute and the State Institute for Music Research, they form Europe’s largest cultural complex. The SPK is no less than Germany’s undeclared, yet undisputed national cultural foundation. A world heavyweight in culture and research. The treasures collected and investigated by the SPK provide insights into every epoch of human history. They range from such unique objects as a golden headdress from the Bronze Age to contemporary photographs by Andreas Gursky. It is impossible to measure the value of the treasures in euros. Our awe is immediately inspired by one of the simple book storerooms at the State Library’s old building on the famous boulevard Unter den Linden. There we find seemingly endless shelves of closely packed books, painstakingly sorted over generations. Only a fraction of the ten million volumes is visible, but this alone is an inexhaustible cosmos of knowledge.
Despite the ring of tradition and history in its name, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation stands for a lively cultural and scientific institution. In fact, in comparison with the age of some of its member institutions the foundation is extremely young – 52 years old. The SPK is a postwar invention of the Federal Republic of Germany, created to preserve and foster the legacy of buildings, works of art, archives and libraries belonging to the Prussian state which was dissolved in 1947: the legacy of "the other Prussia", not the authoritarian state but the tolerant, enlightened, art-loving Prussia. From its very inception the SPK was federalist in structure: it is supported by the Federation and the Länder. The foundation’s initial task was to reunite the contents of the various collections in Berlin, which were widely scattered in the postwar years. Reunite – that is, as far as possible: because half of the possessions, including the buildi ngs and major parts of the collections from Museum Island or the State Library lay in East Berlin, in the GDR. This meant that Nefertiti resided in the West, but her traditional abode lay in the East.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 the SPK was faced with the huge task of reuniting the divided Prussian treasures. A lot of progress has already been made, and this is clearly visible in the foundation’s many construction sites. Its objective will be achieved in the coming years when the new master plan for developing and restoring Museum Island has been realized. It is quite conceivable that the Neues Museum will come to symbolize the essence of the Prussian: it showcases Prussia’s appreciation of art and acts as a poignant reminder of the scars of war and German division, and it is a modern museum based on the latest research and state-of-the-art media technology for visitors. It also contains one of the foundation’s greatest treasures – Nefertiti, the beautiful one.
