Museum Island (in German: Museumsinsel) is the name of the northern half of the Spreeinsel, an island in the Spree river, in the center of the city. (The southern half of the island is called Fischerinsel "Fishers' Island").
The island received its name for several internationally renowned museums that now occupy all of the island's northern half (originally a residential area dedicated to "art and science" by King Frederick William IV of Prussia in 1841). Constructed under several Prussian kings, their collections of art and archeology were turned into a public foundation after 1918, the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation), which maintains the collections and museums today.
The Prussian collections became separated during the Cold War with the entire city, but were finally reunited after German reunification, except for the art and artefacts, that were purloined after World War II by Allied troops, that weren't replaced, like the Priam's Treasure, discovered by Heinrich Schliemann 1873, also called: the gold of Troy.
Presently, the Museumsinsel and the collections are in the process of being reorganized.

The Tempodrom is a cultural arena. Built in may 1980 at Potsdamer Platz from Irene Moessinger. The oddly-shaped white building is a major new concert and event venue.

In the south-eastern corner of Unter den Linden and Charlottenstraße is the Deutsche Guggenheim Berlin. It is the fifth permanent and smallest exhibition space courtesy of this  New York based family, wich incidentally is of german decent.

The Volksbühne (German: People's Theatre) is a theatre in Berlin, located in Berlin's city center Mitte on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz. In what was the DDR's capital, the Volksbühne exemplifies the socialist realism style of architecture that characterized much of East Berlin.
The Volksbühne was built during the years 1913 to 1914 and was designed by Oskar Kaufmann, with integrated sculpture by Franz Metzner. It has its origin in an organization known as the "Freie Volksbühne," which sketched out the vision for a theater "of the people" in 1892. The goal of the organization was to promote the social-realist plays of the day at prices accessible to the common worker. The original slogan inscribed on the edifice was "Die Kunst dem Volke."

The Jewish Museum Berlin (Jüdisches Museum Berlin) is a museum covering two millennia of German Jewish history.
The Jewish Museum was originally founded on Oranienburger Straße in 1933. It was closed in 1938 by the Nazi regime. The idea to revive the museum was first voiced in 1971, and an "Association for a Jewish Museum" was founded in 1975. A Jewish department of the Berlin Museum was opened after the Berlin Museum first displayed an exhibition on Jewish history in Berlin in 1978. In 1999 the Jewish Museum Berlin was granted status as an independent institution. A building by Daniel Libeskind was finished in 1999 and officially opened in 2001.