Work-of-art U-Bahn station will open in Berlin on 9 July

The Museums Island station is based on Karl Friedrich Schinkel's set of “The Magic Flute”

On 9 July the Museumsinsel station will open in Berlin. The station’s design was inspired by the surrounding buildings built by the Prussian architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel and his set designs for Mozart's opera “The Magic Flute”. The architect – Prof. Max Dudler planned the station with a vaulted ceiling in dark blue with 7200 LED lights mimicking a starry sky.

The Museum Island Station will connect the rest of the city of Berlin with Museum Island, where the city’s most famous museums are located. Some of these are the Bode Museum of sculpture and Byzantine art near the river and Pergamonmuseum, with exhibits from ancient Rome, Greece and Babylon.

The new gateway to Berlin

“With the train station, the World Cultural Heritage Museum Island will have a worthy new entrance and our city will have another tourist attraction," said Eva Kreienkamp, the boss of BVG, the company that built the station.

In the heart of Berlin, nestled between the Spree River and Spree Canal, one finds the world-famous Museum Island visited by millions of people every year. Now the new station will serve as a gateway to the cultural life of Berlin and this is why it was built with the idea to be a cultural landmark itself.

A new cultural landmark for Berlin - ahead of schedule

After ten years of construction, the two-kilometre extension of the U5 line went into operation back in December, except for this station. The company put the cost of the new line at 540 million euros.

The tunnel under the Spee River. Source: BVG / A. Reetz-Graudenz

After an uncertain schedule and a few delays, the Museumsinsel station will close the gap of the U5 and serve as a tourist gateway to the centre of Berlin. 

The shaky schedule was due to the fact that the construction process was particularly difficult, as the tunnel runs under some old and grandiose buildings as well as under the river and the canal.

Its construction involved a method called ground freezing, where the ground needs to be stabilised to prevent tunnel collapses during excavations.

There is still some work to be done on the surface of the station, but this will not affect train traffic and passengers.