Karl Friedrich Schinkel

Prussia's chief state architect, Schinkel reshaped Berlin from 1815 onwards. The Altes Museum, Schauspielhaus (Konzerthaus), and Neue Wache established a civic neoclassicism that influenced public building across Germany and beyond.

Schinkel moved between Greek-revival, Gothic, and proto-modernist iron-and-glass projects without committing to one mode — his unbuilt Bazaar Unter den Linden and Berlin department-store sketches anticipate the structural rationalism of the late 19th century.

Mies van der Rohe explicitly cited the Altes Museum's portico as the lineage of his Neue Nationalgalerie.