The opening of the Humboldt Forum, a vast museum and events space in the reconstructed royal palace in Berlin, is to take place this year despite delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic, its management says.
As long as there are no further pandemic-related hold-ups or lockdowns, the first parts of the complex will open on the ground floor and first floor in December, the Humboldt Forum’s leadership said in a statement. An exhibition on the history of the location and a Berlin city history exhibition will be among the first spaces to open to the public, along with an arcade of museums shops and a restaurant in the Schlüterhof courtyard.
Other facilities, such as the exhibitions of the Berlin Ethnological Museum, the Museum of Asian Art, and a roof-terrace restaurant will follow in 2021.
The new culture complex aims to stage around 1,000 events annually and expects to welcome as many as three million visitors a year. The opening was initially planned for autumn 2019, then put off by a year to 2020. Delivery delays and the unavailability of workers during the pandemic lockdown have pushed it back a few months further.