Tuesday May 29

Today we spent the day on Museum island in Berlin. Our fist tour was of the Neues Museum (New Museum). Originally built in the late 1800s the museum houses Egyptian and Pre/Early History artifacts. The building was closed in 1939 before it was destroyed by the bombing of Berlin. After sitting vacant for 70 years an English architect designed and rebuilt the building which opened to the public in 2009. Our main focus of the trip was to study the display cases including why they were built a certain way, how do they protect the object and how are they interactive. We will be meeting the engineer who designed the display cases on Thursday.

Egyptian Sarcophagus’

Museum island is very close to Alexanderplatz, a large square in the center of city, providing a great place for lunch. We ate at a cafe near the base of Berlin’s “space needle” the Fernsehturm. The last few days have been in the high 80s resulting in lots of ice cream stops. Many of us grabbed a cone along the Spree river to cool off after lunch.

Alexanderplatz with view of Fernsehturm

The afternoon consisted of a visit to the Berlin Technik museum. Here there were exhibits on the evolution of trains, aviation, boats, computers, manufacturing and brewing. The task at hand was to find an item we like and note its material to study on Thursday. This museum was more intriguing for me as there were some hands on exhibits and early age equipment. We got to see how much technology has changed the way we live and many inventions that have made life easier.

Berlin Technik Museum

Vincent Polhemus
Class of 2020
Civil Engineering