Hamburg (dpa) – The city of Hamburg’s main art museum, the Kunsthalle, is celebrating the completion of two years of renovation works by opening to the public completely free of charge during the month of May.

More than 700 art works are on display, covering seven centuries of European art history, the Hamburg Tourism Office says.

Renovation work got going in the summer of 2014, taking one section of the Kunsthalle for renovation at a time while keeping other galleries open.

A major project was refurbishing the museum’s historic entrance in the original building completed in 1869. Overall, the work was aimed at fusing every part of the complex, which has grown by many stages, into a single integrated whole.

Following up on the reopening will be five new exhibitions.

The first exhibition opening on May 27 is a major show of works of the French impressionist painter Edouard Manet. That show is to be succeeded by exhibitions in contemporary art, modern art, Old Masters and 19th-century art.