Berlin - Hamburger Bahnhof

Hamburger Bahnhof is the former terminal of the Berlin–Hamburg Railway in Berlin, Germany. Today it serves as a contemporary art museum, the Museum für Gegenwart, part of the Berlin National Gallery.

The station was built to Friedrich Neuhaus's plans in 1846-47 as the starting point of the Berlin–Hamburg Railway, and is one of the oldest station buildings in Germany. It is the only surviving terminal building in Berlin from the late neoclassical period, though the building has not been used as a station since 1884, when northbound long distance trains from Berlin began leaving from an alternative terminal.

In the mid-1980s, Berlin entrepreneur Erich Marx offered his private collection of contemporary art to the city, leading the Berlin Senate to establish a museum of contemporary art in the former railway station in 1987. The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation agreed to operate the museum as part of the National Gallery. 

A competition for the renovation of the station was announced by the Senate in 1989, and was won by the architect Josef Paul Kleihues. Between 1990 and 1996, Kleihues refurbished the building, and in November 1996 the museum was opened 

The Museum für Gegenwart exhibits modern and contemporary art. Permanent loans from the Marx collection, including works by artists such as Joseph Beuys, Anselm Kiefer, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol, are on permanent display. 

Andy Warhol, Do it Yourself (Seascape), 1962

While I was appreciative of the art in the gallery, and found it greatly interesting to see the works of artists such as Andy Warhol in person, I was more captivated by the interior of the gallery - from the ceilings to the windows and exposed structures of the old rail terminal. The space itself felt vast and open, allowing the art to be spread across the gallery walls with fair spacing - allowing you to appreciate each artwork undisturbed by the next. Analysis of space and rooms is becoming part of my mind-set whenever I visit places due to the desire I have to potentially work in interior design and styling.