German Chancellor Angela Merkel opened today Berlin's historic Neues Museum (New Museum) seven decades after it was virtually reduced to rubble by World War II air raids and following 11 years of restoration, dpa reported. The makeover of the 1855 building marks another stage in the marathon reconstruction of the cluster of five museums comprising Berlin's neoclassical museum island, which has been one of the world's biggest cultural renovation projects. The museum's re-emergence from the ruins of war represented a great day for German cultural life, "not only because I live opposite," said Merkel, whose private apartment is located on the other side of the street to the museum. British star architect David Chipperfield headed up the Neues Museum renovation team, with the building's reconstruction costing 213 million euros (318 million dollars). The reopening of the Neues Museum, which is located in the German capital's former communist half, comes 20 years after a popular uprising paved the way for the fall of the Berlin Wall. The centrepiece of the Neues Museums' new collection is the 3,500 year-old iconic bust of the ancient Egyptian Queen Nefertiti.
