Neues Museum

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Mostly in ruins since 1945, the Neues Museum was reopened, after an 11-year, $250 million makeover by English architect David Chipperfield, in October 2009. It's now the permanent home of the Ägyptische Museum (Egyptian Museum), whose most celebrated exhibit is the bust of Nefertiti, dating from around 1350 BC. The collection also includes a series of characterful model faces, and the vivid 'Berlin Green Head', plus papyruses and statuary aplenty. The building, which follows the floorplan of Friedrich August Stüler's original mid-19th-century design, but with substantial sections completely reinvented by Chipperfield, also now hosts the collection of the Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte (Museum of Prehistory and Early History).