BERLIN.- After two years of extensive renovation work, the Museum of European Cultures reopened this December and is again able to host exhibitions in Dahlem. Highlights will include: • a permanent exhibition on the theme of ‘Cultural Contacts – Life in Europe’ • a temporary exhibition entitled ‘Explorations in Europe – Visual Studies in the 19th Century’ and • a study collection, with regularly rotating displays of groups of objects from the museum’s collection. The Museum of European Cultures was called into being in 1999 and was created by merging the 110 year-old Museum of European Ethnology (Museum für Volkskunde) with the European collection of the Ethnological Museum. It focuses on lifeworlds in Europe and European cultural contacts from the 18th century until today. Comprising some 27,000 original objects, the museum houses one of the largest European collections of everyday culture and popular art. The topics covered by the collection are as diverse as t