Originally, the classicist building of the Alte Staatsgalerie was also the home of the Royal Art School.

[3] It houses the following collections: The Neue Staatsgalerie, a controversial[4] architectural design by James Stirling, opened on March 9, 1984 on a site right next to the old building.

It houses a collection of 20th-century modern art — from Pablo Picasso to Oskar Schlemmer, Joan Miró and Joseph Beuys.

The building layout bears resemblance to Schinkel's Altes Museum, with a series of connected galleries around three sides of a central rotunda.

[5] In 2013, the Staatsgalerie returned Virgin and Child, a 15th-century painting attributed to the Master of Flémalle (1375–1444), to the estate of Max Stern, a German-born Jewish dealer who fled the Nazis and later operated the Dominion Gallery in Montreal.