Berlin Charlottenburg

Charlottenburg’s museums range from high culture to smut and house one of the strongest collections of Picasso outside of Barcelona.

Museum Berggruen. This intimate three-floor museum exhibits some wonderful Picassos alongside works that influenced the artist, including African masks and late French Impressionist paintings by Matisse. The top floor showcases paintings by Bauhaus teacher Paul Klee and Alberto Giacometti’s surreally elongated sculptures. (Schloßstr. 1. Near the Schloß Charlottenburg. Take bus #M45 from Bahnhof Zoo to Luisenplatz/Schloß Charlottenburg or U2 to Sophie-Charlotte-Platz. ☎030 3269 580. Open Tu-Su 10am-6pm. €6, students €3, children free. Audio guide free.)

Käthe-Kollwitz-Museum. Through both World Wars, Käthe Kollwitz, a member of the Berlin Sezession (Secession) movement and one of Germany’s most prominent 20th-century artists, protested war and the condition of the working class through her haunting depictions of death, poverty, and suffering.The artist’s biographical details—her son died in World War II and she withdrew into so-called inner migration during the DDR—provide context for her depictions of death, pregnancy, and starvation and for her somber self-portraits shown in what used to be a private home. (Fasanenstr. 24. U1 to Uhlandstr. ☎030 882 5210; www.kaethe-kollwitz.de. Open daily 11am-6pm. €5, students €2.50. Audio guide €3.)

Bröhanmuseum. This sleek building is full of Jugendstil (a.k.a Art Nouveau) and Art Deco paintings, houseware, and furniture. The ground floor consists of several ensembles of furniture, complete with accompanying paintings from the same time period (1889-1939). The first floor is a small gallery dedicated to the Modernist Berlin Sezession painters and the top floor houses special exhibitions. (Schloßstr. 1A, next to the Berggruen, across from the Schloß. ☎030 32 69 06 00; www.broehan-museum.de. Open Tu-Su 10am-6pm. €5, students €4.)

Museum Für Fotografie. The former Landwehr-Casino building became a museum in June 2004, devoted principally to displaying the work of Helmut Newton in ever-changing guises. In the former brick ballroom on the third floor, rotating exhibits join the alternating collection of Newton’s quasi-pornographic photos. (Jebensstr. 2, directly behind the Zoo station. ☎030 2662188. Open Tu-Su 10am-6pm, Th 10am-10pm. €6, students €3. SMB Museum cards accepted.)

Beate Uhse Erotik Museum. The world’s largest sex museum contains over 5000 sex artifacts from around the world. Attracting a quarter of a million visitors per year, it is Berlin’s fifth-most popular tourist attraction. Visitors come to see erotica ranging from naughty carvings on a 17th-century Italian deer-hunting knife to a 1955 calendar featuring Marilyn Monroe in the nude. A small exhibit describes the life of Beate Uhse, a pilot-turned-entrepreneur who pioneered Europe’s first and largest sex shop chain. (Joachimstalerstr. 4. ☎030 886 0666; www.erotikmuseum.de. Museum open daily 9am-midnight. €6, students €5. Gift store open M-Sa 9am-9pm, Su 1-10pm.)