The main train station was built between 1899 and 1906. Located in the former moat of the city"s fortification, the station has an arched glass and iron roof. On the north side of the hall, the Wandelhalle, a promenade with shops on two floors was added between 1988 and 1991. The area includes an expressionist flower shop of 1925 with its beautiful decor of green and golden majolica tiles. The hall and its tudor-style construction with low side aisles echoes the "Halle des Machines" in the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889. Restrained renaissance elements integrated into the facade, demanded by Kaiser Wilhelm II, almost disappear behind the rough grey stone of the facade.

The MKG’s collections have been gathered over generations. Today it is a universal museum, presenting over 500 000 works showcasing human creativity and inventiveness at their best. The high calibre collection spans over 4000 years of human history from Antiquity, the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Baroque and Classicism to Modernity and the present.

The Period Rooms are a special attraction. Presenting media, furniture and all kinds of objects together, these rooms illustrate the lifestyle of diverse epochs. The Milde-Speckter-Rooms represent bourgeois living during Classicism. With its Gründerzeit concert room splendour the Hall of Mirrors remains a social centre of Hamburg today. In 2012 Verner Panton’s dazzling Canteen designed for the SPIEGEL Publishing House, an icon of Pop Art, is being installed at the MKG.

The MKG rents out its prestigious rooms as venues for your private and public events: the Spiegelsaal, the Vestibül and – since November 2012 – the SPIEGEL-Kantine by Verner Panton. These historical rooms provide a special ambiente for readings, concerts, dinners, parties, banquets or balls. What is more, the MKG, with its many-faceted ambiente, is available as a location for photo shoots and films.