The Lenbachhaus is a building housing the Städtische Galerie (Municipal Gallery) art museum in Munich’s Kunstareal. The Lenbachhaus was built as a Florentine-style villa for the painter Franz von Lenbach between 1887 and 1891 by Gabriel von Seidl and was expanded 1927–1929 by Hans Grässel and again 1969–1972 by Heinrich Volbehr and Rudolf Thönnessen. Some of the rooms have kept their original design.

I have to share with you how I first discovered the Villa Lenbach. It was through windows in the new wing of the Lenbachhaus Museum. I’m a newbie to Germany; I think I’ve made that clear. I have never spent a moment previous to this summer thinking about visiting Germany, much less living here for a few months. Yet, here I am and I am enjoying it fully.

So that explains why I didn’t know one thing about the Lenbachhaus until I visited it. I was happily walking through what turns out to be the new wing, having no knowledge that the name of the museum or the location were based upon an Italian villa design! When I first spotted the formal garden out the window of the new wing, I almost fainted. I thought, wait, am I in Rome? It was a particularly hot sunny summer day and it felt like it could have been Italy!

The city of Munich acquired the building in 1924 and opened a museum there in 1929. The latest wing was closed to the public in 2009 to allow the expansion and restoration of the Lenbachhaus by Norman Foster; the 1972 extension was demolished to make way for the new building. The museum reopened in May 2013. The architect placed the new main entrance on Museumsplatz in front of the Propylaea. The new facade, clad in metal tubes made of an alloy of copper and aluminum, will weather with time.

Berlin has Museum Island. Munich has the Kunstareal. Either one or both will blow your art loving mind.

The Kunstareal (art district) is a museum quarter in the city center of Munich, Germany. It consists of the three Pinakotheken galleries (Alte Pinakothek, Neue Pinakothek and Pinakothek der Moderne), the Glyptothek, the Staatliche Antikensammlungen (both museums are specialized in Greek and Roman art), the Lenbachhaus, the Museum Brandhorst (a private collection of modern art) and several galleries. Also the Staatliche Sammlung für Ägyptische Kunst (the state collection of Egypt art) was moved to the Kunstareal in 2013. The history of the museums in this area of Munich began in 1816 with the erection of the Glyptothek at Königsplatz and was completed with the new building for the Egyptian Museum (2012) and the extension of the Lenbachhaus (2013)

For more, see: https://kunstareal.de

1. The Alte Pinakothek contains a treasure trove of the works of European masters between the 14th and 18th centuries. The collection reflects the eclectic tastes of the Wittelsbach dynasty over four centuries, and is sorted by schools over two sprawling floors. Major displays include Albrecht Dürer’s Christ-like Self-Portrait, his The Four Apostles, Raphael’s paintings The Canigiani Holy Family and Madonna Tempi as well as Peter Paul Rubens self-portrait Honeysuckle Bower and his two-storey-high Judgment Day. The gallery houses one of the world’s most comprehensive Rubens collections. The Madonna of the Carnation is the only painting of Leonardo da Vinci in a German gallery.

2. The Neue Pinakothek is especially famous for its comprehensive collection of paintings of Impressionism from Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Edgar Degas, Vincent van Gogh and many others.

3. The Pinakothek der Moderne unifies the Bavarian State Collection of Modern and Contemporary Arts, the National Collection of Works on Paper and the Museum for Design and Applied Arts with the Munich Technical University’s Museum of Architecture in one building and is deemed one of the most important and popular museums of modern art in Europe. It houses indeed the largest collection of industrial design. The Collection of Works on Paper ranges from masterpieces of Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci to Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Paul Klee and David Hockney.

It is owned by the nearby Staatliche Graphische Sammlung München, a world-renowned collection of 400,000 prints, engravings and drawings dating back to the Renaissance. The Collection of Modern Art keeps a large collection of paintings of Pablo Picasso, Max Beckmann and of the painters of Die Brücke.

4. The Lenbachhaus houses many works by the Blaue Reiter group of artists who worked in Munich.

5. The modern Museum Brandhorst focus on the work of Andy Warhol and Cy Twombly.

6. An important collection of Greek and Roman art is held in the Glyptothek and the Staatliche Antikensammlung (State Antiquities Collection). King Ludwig I managed to acquire such famous pieces as the Medusa Rondanini, the Barberini Faun and the figures from the Temple of Aphaea on Aegina for the Glyptothek. The internationally renowned collection of antique pottery is outstanding. The Museum für Abgüsse klassischer Bildwerke displays the world’s most famous ancient Greek and Roman sculptures as plaster casts.

7. The Kunstareal was further augmented by the completion of the Staatliche Sammlung für Ägyptische Kunst (Egyptian Museum). This museum displays exhibits from all periods of Ancient Egypt’s history but also reliefs from Assyria and a lion from the Ishtar Gate of Babylon.

Nearby the Kunstareal are several natural scientific museums of the Bavarian state, like the Paläontologisches Museum München, the Geological Museum and the Museum Reich der Kristalle as the public part of the “Mineralogische Staatssammlung Muenchen” (Bavarian State Collection for Mineralogy).

As I passed from the gallery that houses the Barberini Faun, this was what I encountered next. The austere simplicity in which these masterpieces of Greek art are housed, in this quiet Neoclassical space, is notable.

Above and below, the so-called Munich Diomedes. Roman copy after a Greek original from ca. 440–430 BC, attributed to Kresilas.

There are many beautiful artworks in this gallery; below are the ones that captured me on my visit that day.

Below, the Bust of Athena.

Visiting this museum was high, very high, on my list of things I wanted to do in Munich.

Today I visited and I was delighted.

As I entered, I thought to myself, I think I’ll just enjoy it without taking a lot of pictures and may I won’t even blog about it, for a change.

My resolve continued through the first room, although I was immediately impressed with the supreme quality of the works exhibited and the gorgeous, apprpriate spaces in which the artworks were shown. I felt calmed by the space, and bewitched by the art works.

Again, as I have been saying since I first arrived in Berlin, I am very impressed by the quality and even quantity of labeling in English (and Italian. There are a lot of visitors from Italy in Germany. I hear Italian every day).

And then I passed from the Room of the Kouroi to the next, gorgeous, domed gallery, where in the center sits the magnificent Hellenistic sculpture, the Barberini Faun. It took my breath away. Behold.

I’ve seen copies of this famous work in other museums and although we can’t be sure this is the original Hellenistic version (it may be a Roman copy), nothing prepared me for this work in this space.

Nothing prepared me for the opportunity to walk around the sculpture and admire its form and structure from all angles.

Nothing prepared me for the chance to be up close and personal with this incredible thing.

It was downhill from this room onward. I was lost and taking pictures right and left. You’ll get to see the cream of the crop in a few upcoming posts. I cannot recommend German art museums highly enough.

In the hamlet of Schwangau in southern Germany sits this crazy castle. Conceived and constructed by King Ludwig the II, it was not finished in his lifetime. He was eccentric and so is his castle. Perhaps it is as well known around the world as it is because it is believed that Walt Disney fashioned his Disneyland castles after this folly.

I took a day trip from Munich to view this landmark and it was well worth the trip. Ludwig II was a dreamer, and spent his days lost in literature and a fantasy world of his own creation. He was a major patron of Richard Wagner and employed the composer’s set decorator to help him design this castle, both inside and out.

Visitors are not allowed to photograph the interior, but if you are interested, you can find lots of pictures on the internet. The thing that most impressed me is that this castle was built in the 2nd half of the 19th century, using steel girders and brick construction. A steam powered crane was on site to help facilitate the building process and tragically about 30 builders lost their lives in the construction of this faux castle built upon an alpine crag.

As we all know, castles were fortified buildings, used to protect the elite while simultaneously allowing their armed forces to detect the approach of any encroachers. When Ludwig built this fortification, the telephone had been invented (and was installed in the castle), which was a more efficient and effective means of detecting approaching danger.

The castle as seen today isn’t finished to Ludwig’s specifications. There would have been an enormously tall keep in the center, which was not completed. The building, for all its size, has only one bedroom. That for the eccentric king. He spent fewer than 150 days and nights in his last castle.

Ludwig II (Ludwig Otto Friedrich Wilhelm; 25 August 1845 – 13 June 1886), who was also known as the Swan King or the Fairy Tale King (der Märchenkönig), was King of Bavaria from 1864 until his death in 1886. He also held the titles of Count Palatine of the Rhine, Duke of Bavaria, Duke of Franconia, and Duke in Swabia. Outside Germany, he is at times called “the Mad King” or Mad King Ludwig.

Ludwig ascended to the throne in 1864 at the age of 18 but increasingly withdrew from day-to-day affairs of state in favor of extravagant artistic and architectural projects. He commissioned the construction of lavish palaces: Neuschwanstein Castle, Linderhof Palace, and Herrenchiemsee. He was also a devoted patron of the composer Richard Wagner. Ludwig spent all his own private royal revenues (although not state funds as is commonly thought) on these projects, borrowed extensively, and defied all attempts by his ministers to restrain him. This extravagance was used against him to declare him insane, an accusation that has since come under scrutiny.

For all of its eccentricities, the building is completely understandable as a model for Walt Disney. Look at those almost comical faces attached to the corbels below.

The main approach to the castle today is from the rear. In the picture above and below, we see the actual front facade of the building, which is in red brick.

And what, you might ask, was the view from the front of the castle? One turns around and sees this:

Wow. Crazy and a tourist trap. Glad I saw it though!

Another year has passed. It seems almost impossible that time flies so quickly. I posted this video a year ago and love what it says. Wanted to repost.

Happy birthday dad!

Isn’t it beautiful?! These pix and videos are from my trip to the countryside south of Munich in mid August. I loved seeing this gorgeous part of Bavaria, just north of Austria.

Above and below, I even saw a cemetery. Look at how groomed each plot is. That’s Germany!

Goodbye to Munich. This was my view there for over a month. I actually liked this view a lot and I really enjoyed being in both Berlin and Munich. I caught the moon one night in a photo in the latter.

And hello to Florence!

This happened overnight of course because Europe is relatively small to us Americani!

But I traveled through Milan where I caught one cool poster while walking quite a distance from my hotel to the train station because the subway was on strike—welcome to Italy! (Although I’ve had the same experience in Paris to be fair!)

I love the poster. It says: “invitation to the theater! At the theater you will see the most beautiful things!”

I’m staying in a sweet Airbnb apartment just outside Florence; I have a lovely olive tree outside my kitchen window and the view of a grove of olives outside my bedroom window. I’m awaiting my own apartment which should be available next week, finalmente!

And while it may seem like a beautiful dream, there are also strikes you contend with in Florence, but honestly it’s a small price to pay for the opportunity to live here. I’m so happy to be here at last and the summer heat is just a memory.

Munich is the city of monks, which is what the name means in German. I like this symbol of the heritage as spotted on a Ubahn car.

Never before have I seen children represented as caryatids. It is unique and wonderful!

Munich is a lot of fun to walk around in the pedestrian only city center. I feel so lucky to have had this time here to get to know this great city! Bitte und danke!

I got to see this famous clock dance! It was a sunny morning and I was in Marienplatz at just the right time. I joined hundreds of other people to watch the mechanical clock play out its drama.

The Rathaus-Glockenspiel is a large mechanical clock located in Marienplatz Square, in the heart of  Munich. Famous for its life-size characters, the clock twice daily re-enacts scenes from Munich’s history. First is the story of the marriage of Duke Wilhelm V to Renata of Lorraine in 1568, followed by the story of the schäfflerstanz, also known as the coopers’ dance.

The clock, with 43 bells and 32 life-size figures, was added during the completion of the Neues Rathaus (New Town Hall) in 1908. Every day at 11 a.m. and 12 p.m. (as well as 5 p.m. from March to October) the clock re-enacts two stories from Munich’s history from the 16th century, taking about 15 minutes.

The top half of the Glockenspiel tells the story of the marriage of the local Duke Wilhelm V (who also founded the noted Hofbräuhaus) to Renata of Lorraine (Renate von Lothringen). In honor of the happy couple, there is a joust with life-sized knights on horseback representing Bavaria (in white and blue) and Lothringen (in red and white); the Bavarian knight (Bayerische Ritter) wins.

This is followed by the second story, the Schäfflertanz otherwise known as the coopers’ dance, which plays out on the bottom half of the clock. This story depicts the end of a severe plague that took place in 1517. The coopers are said to have danced through the streets, encouraging residents to leave their homes again after being frightened by the plague. The coopers remained loyal to the duke, and their dance came to symbolize perseverance and loyalty to authority through difficult times. By tradition, the dance is performed in Munich every seven years. This was described in 1700 as “an age-old custom”, but the current dance was defined only in 1871. The dance is performed during Fasching (German Carnival); it was performed in 2019.

At the very end of the show, a very small golden rooster at the top of the Glockenspiel chirps quietly three times, marking the end of the spectacle.