A father and daughter look frescoes from the Casa Bartholdy in Rome at the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin Germany. Children in the museum. The Alte Nationalgalerie is the original home of the Nationalgalerie, whose collections today are divided between the Neue Nationalgalerie, the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, the Friedrichswerdersche Kirche, Museum Berggruen and the Sammlung Scharf-Gerstenberg. The idea of establishing a cultural and educational centre across from the Berlin Palace dates back to the time of Friedrich Wilhelm IV, who dreamt of creating a "sanctuary for art and science" on the site. The basic architectural concept for the Alte Nationalgalerie – a temple-like building raised on a plinth decorated with motifs from antiquity – came from the king himself. The building was designed by Friedrich August Stüler, a student of Schinkel who also designed the Neues Museum. It was completed after Stüler’s death by another of Schinkel’s students, Johann Heinrich Strack. The initial impetus for the construction of the Nationalgalerie was a bequest to the Prussian state in 1861 from the banker and consul Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Wagener, whose collection featured works by Caspar David Friedrich, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, painters from the Düsseldorf school, and history painters from Belgium. The bequest came with the stipulation that the paintings were to be publicly displayed in a "suitable location". Just one year later Stüler received the commission to draw up plans for the building. After ten years of construction the Nationalgalerie ceremoniously opened on 21 March 1876 for the birthday of Kaiser Wilhelm I, becoming the third museum on the island in the Spree.