War-scarred Berlin museum shows off 10-year makeover

Berlin's restored neoclassical Neues Museum's $250 million, 10-year facelift follows decades of neglect under communism and bomb damage from World War II.

The 20,500-square metres of exhibition space has been reworked, with modern design replacing parts of the interior, which will again house antiquities including a bust of ancient Egyptian Queen Nefertiti.

Modernist British architect David Chipperfield said he had wanted to keep as much of the old interior as possible.

"You can't build something again. We wanted to keep what was still there and survived all these years and hold on to the original material," he told Reuters Television.

Many consider the museum one of Germany's architectural masterpieces. Built by Prussian architect Friedrich Stueler in 1843, the building gained Unesco World Heritage site status in 2000 and opens for its first exhibition on October 16.