Humboldt Forum

What it is

The Humboldt Forum occupies the rebuilt Berlin Palace on Schlossplatz, at the eastern end of Unter den Linden and across the Lustgarten from the Berlin Cathedral. It is not one museum but a shared building. Four institutions run their own exhibitions inside it, each with its own ticket rules and its own rules on photography: the Stiftung Humboldt Forum im Berliner Schloss, the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz, the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Stadtmuseum Berlin. That division explains most of the practical confusion visitors run into here, and it is worth understanding before buying anything.

The building is itself an argument made in stone. A 2007 Bundestag decision stipulated that only three of the four outer facades, along with the cupola, would be reconstructed in Baroque form, together with the three Baroque facades of the Schlüterhof; the east side facing the Spree is deliberately modern. The Foundation puts the construction budget at 682 million euros, of which the Federal Government pays 570 million and the State of Berlin 32 million, with the Baroque facade decoration financed by 80 million euros in private donations.

What a visitor actually gets is a courtyard and passage open around the clock at ground level, several displays that cost nothing, and two large ticketed exhibitions upstairs that are sold separately from each other.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

What's inside

The ticketed core sits on the second and third floors: the Ethnologisches Museum and the Museum für Asiatische Kunst of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, around 20,000 exhibits across 16,000 square metres. Africa and Oceania are on the second floor, Asia on the third, with the Americas and a rotating set of six temporary exhibitions alongside. Pieces the Forum signposts itself include the mangaaka power figure from Congo, the Benin bronzes, the large outrigger boat from Luf Island, the east gate of the Stupa of Sanchi, the processional bull Nandi, the Wang Shu Room and a tea house built for the building. The labelling is explicit about how the objects arrived: the Forum's own text names colonial rule and the conditions under which things were collected.

On the first floor, BERLIN GLOBAL is a separate exhibition run by the Stadtmuseum Berlin, interactive and focused on the city's connections to the wider world. It has its own ticket and is not covered by the collections ticket.

Costing nothing, and worth planning around: the Palace Cellar in the basement, where the excavated foundations of the Berlin Palace and the medieval Dominican monastery survive; the Sculpture Hall; the Video Panorama; the display on the Humboldt brothers; and On Water. The Schlüter Courtyard and the Passage stay open around the clock.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

How long to spend

The Forum publishes its own average visit times, which is unusual and makes planning here easier than at most museums. It gives roughly 90 minutes for the Ethnologisches Museum, roughly 90 minutes for the Museum für Asiatische Kunst, roughly 120 minutes for BERLIN GLOBAL and roughly 30 minutes for the Palace Cellar.

Those numbers do not fit into one afternoon. A single nine-euro ticket covers the Ethnological Collections and Asian Art together, and the operator's own figures make that a three-hour visit, which is the duration recorded on this page. Add BERLIN GLOBAL and the building's own arithmetic puts a visitor past five hours before the free displays, the cellar or the roof terrace have been counted at all.

The Forum states plainly that anyone booking more than one exhibition should coordinate the times and allow for the estimated duration of each. It also asks visitors on a guided tour to arrive fifteen minutes before the start, and says that quarter of an hour should be built into the plan rather than absorbed on the day.

The practical reading is to take one ticketed exhibition per visit. Three hours upstairs, half an hour in the cellar and a short stop on the roof terrace fills a comfortable half day. Attempting both large exhibitions in one day means walking past most of both.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Season and crowds

Tuesday is the closed day, and it is a standing weekly closure rather than an occasional one. The exhibitions open Wednesday to Monday, 10.30 to 18.30. There is no midday break, and no late opening is published for the exhibitions themselves, though the roof terrace runs until 20.00 on Fridays while the rest of the building shuts at 18.30. Evening events usually begin at 19.00 and are listed separately under the programme.

Named exceptions are published well ahead. For the coming winter the Forum lists 24 December 2026 as closed; 25 and 26 December open 10.30 to 18.30, with BERLIN GLOBAL starting later at 12.00; 27 to 30 December on normal hours except Tuesday 29 December, closed as usual; 31 December closing early at 16.00 with BERLIN GLOBAL shut for the day; and 1 January 2027 opening late at 12.00. Regular hours resume from 2 January 2027.

BERLIN GLOBAL states a last admission of 17.30. No last-admission time is published for the Ethnological Collections and Asian Art, so 17.30 is a sensible latest arrival for any ticketed floor, offered here as judgement rather than as a rule the Forum has set. The Forum publishes nothing about its busiest months.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Tickets

One exhibition ticket costs 9 euros. It covers either BERLIN GLOBAL on the first floor, or the Ethnological Collections and Asian Art including their temporary exhibitions on the second and third floors. It does not cover both. Tickets are sold online and at the ticket office in the foyer.

Several things cost nothing: the Palace Cellar, the Sculpture Hall, the Video Panorama, the Insights display on the Humboldt brothers, and On Water. The roof terrace is charged separately at 3 euros, or 1.50 reduced, and needs its own ticket even for a walk-up visit to the Baret restaurant, unless a table is already booked and the confirmation can be shown at the lift. The media guide is 3 euros from the ticket office.

Discounts differ between the two large exhibitions, and that is the trap. For the Ethnological Collections, Asian Art and the roof terrace, under-19s enter free and there is a 50 per cent reduction for pupils, students, volunteers and trainees up to the age of 30, for ALG I recipients and for people with at least 50 per cent disability; groups of ten or more pay 8 euros a head. For BERLIN GLOBAL the free age limit is under 18 and the reduced ticket is a flat 5 euros. Only one discount may be claimed, and proof is checked at the box office.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Getting there

No car is needed, and the Forum does not offer one anywhere to park. The nearest U-Bahn station is Museumsinsel on the U5, a one-minute walk. Hackescher Markt is ten minutes on foot and Alexanderplatz, where S-Bahn and U-Bahn meet, is fifteen. Bus routes 100, 300 and N5 stop at Lustgarten and route 147 at Berliner Schloss, both a minute away. Coach stops are on Rathausstraße, with stopping permitted from 09.00 to 22.30.

Drivers are pointed at third-party car parks, none of them on site: Dom Aquarée, Bebelplatz and Rathauspassagen. Barrier-free parking is available south of the building on Schlossplatz, and the taxi rank is on Spandauer Straße at the corner of Rathausstraße.

Entrances matter more here than at most museums, because the building has five portals and they do not all lead to the same places. The exhibitions are entered through Portal 3 on the west side, or through the revolving door in the Passage reached from portals 2 and 4 on the north and south. The Video Panorama and the Sculpture Hall are reached instead from the Schlüter Courtyard, through portals 1 and 5. Museumsinsel and Alexanderplatz stations are both wheelchair accessible, and assistance dogs are welcome inside the building.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

What to watch out for

The luggage rule is stricter than most and covers the roof terrace and the Baret restaurant as well as the exhibitions. Anything bulky or sharp-edged, including briefcases, camera cases, tripods and umbrellas, and any backpack or bag larger than 30 by 20 by 10 centimetres, must go to the cloakroom or into a locker. The cloakroom is free, but the Forum says storage space for bags, backpacks and suitcases is very limited, and luggage larger than airline carry-on size cannot be accepted in the building at all. Anyone arriving between trains needs to solve that elsewhere first. The rule is waived only for visits to the Sculpture Hall and the Video Panorama.

Coats and wet outerwear may not be taken into the exhibitions, and jackets may not be carried over an arm, though a jumper carried loose is allowed. Umbrellas and walking poles are refused in the galleries, medically justified mobility aids excepted, and the house lends trolleys and wheelchairs where a pram would put objects at risk. Eating and drinking in the exhibition rooms is not permitted. Children under 12 must be accompanied in the exhibition areas and may not be carried on shoulders. Dogs are allowed outdoors on a lead, indoors only as trained assistance dogs. Bag checks may be run at any time.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Photography

The rules change floor by floor, because each institution in the building sets its own, and this is the detail visitors most often get wrong.

Outdoors, in the Schlüter Courtyard, the Passage and the Spree terrace, photography and filming are permitted for commercial and non-commercial purposes alike, and tripods and flash may be used. Anything needing a ladder, lighting, reflectors or a crew, and any aerial shot, requires a permit applied for at least fourteen days in advance, for which the Foundation generally charges a fee.

In the Ethnologisches Museum and the Museum für Asiatische Kunst on the second and third floors, visitors may photograph for their own private use. Commercial use of those images needs prior permission under the rules of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.

Two areas are closed to cameras. In BERLIN GLOBAL, photography and filming are prohibited outright, private or commercial, because of conflicting third-party rights, so the exhibition a good many visitors come for produces no pictures at all. The Humboldt Lab After Nature on the first floor is likewise prohibited without prior permission.

Everywhere else indoors, including the foyer, the staircases, the Foundation's own displays and the roof terrace, private photography is allowed without flash. Tripods are not permitted indoors anywhere.

Checked 2026-08-26 · Source

Where it is

• 45 min

  3 min walk

  Bauakademie

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  • Historic monument
• 30 min

  3 min walk

  Berlin Cathedral

  • Must see · Heritage site
  • Place of worship
• 1 hr 30 min

  4 min walk

  DDR Museum

  • Must see
  • Museum

External links

• View on Wikidata