The Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts, destroyed by Allied bombing in World War II, reopened this week in a new $100 million building.

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It's new, modern glass-and-steel cube is very unlike its neo-classic predecessor, built in 1837.

The museum's collection, one of the nation's oldest, was hidden away before the bombing in 1943 and has been moved from place to place over the years, largely unseen by the art world during the era when Leipzig was in Communist East Germany. The original museum was built by a society of wealthy middle-class citizens and its unrivalled collection of romantic German paintings, including masterpieces by Caspar David Friedrich, reflected their tastes.

Recently the collection of some 3,500 paintings and other art works has been updated with acquisitions of works by contemporary artists such as Neo Rauch. It is now considered one of Germany's largest and most comprehensive collections.