Moritzburg

The Moritzburg is a late-15th-century brick fortress built by the Archbishops of Magdeburg as a residence and stronghold. It was wrecked in the Thirty Years' War and stood as a ruin for two centuries; the open ruin was finally enclosed under a striking modernist roof of folded aluminium plates in 2008, by the Spanish architects Nieto Sobejano.

Today the castle holds the Saxony-Anhalt state art museum, with strong collections of German Expressionism (Kirchner, Nolde, Marc), early-20th-century photography, and modern sculpture. The combination of medieval shell and contemporary roof is genuinely impressive, and the exhibitions are first-rate. Allow at least two hours.

things to do museum sight architecture
A story
Albrecht Dürer's only known portrait of an African man — a chalk drawing of an unnamed sitter Dürer met in Antwerp in 1521 — turned up at the Moritzburg in 1869, decades before Dürer scholars realised what they had. It is now one of the most famous drawings in the collection.