A place fit for kings

The Königsplatz, or "Kings Square," is one of my favorite places here, and is very near to us in downtown Munich.  (I even did a presentation on its history for my German course in January, so I've already taken and assembled lots of pictures...)

View of the Propyläen from the steps of the Antiques Collection museum, Königsplatz

Portrait of King Ludwig I, by Joseph Karl Steiler
(from http://www.pinakothek.de/joseph-karl-stieler/
koenig-ludwig-i-von-bayern-im-kroenungsornat

King Ludwig I was the ruler of Bavaria from 1825 - 1848, and had very grandiose ideas for building Munich into a world-class city of art and culture.  (This is also the grandfather of "crazy" Ludwig II who built all the fairy-tale castles outside of town.)

Together with his architects, mostly Leo von Klenze, Ludwig conceived plans for a regal square of ancient Greek architecture, which would serve as a western gate to the city and also be part of a royal corridor from the Residenz, the principal palace in the heart of town (earlier post here), to the summer palace, Nymphenburg (see here).

Von Klenze and King Ludwig I envisioned a "German Athens" for Munich, and in the design of buildings surrounding the Königsplatz you can certainly see elements of the Acropolis...

Glyptothek, designed by Leo von Klenze, built between 1816 - 1830.

The first building on the Königsplatz, in very neoclassical style, was the Glyptothek.  It was designed to be a space worthy of the king's large collection of ancient Greek and Roman statuary.

Interior view from 1900.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:
Munich_glyptothek_interior_1900.jpg

Current view of the Glyptothek interior, with Benjamin and me,
discussing the pros and cons of statuary versus pictures...

When we visited the Glyptothek museum I was impressed with how classically sparse the interior is.  Originally the walls and ceilings were covered in colorful frescos and paintings, as you can sort of see in the archive picture. The building was badly damaged by bombs during the war, however, and when it was finally reconstructed, the inside was rebuilt very simply from lightly plastered red brick, which I think shows the statues better.

The Barberini Faun, an original Greek statue from

 c. 220 B.C. (discovered in Rome c. 1625) is the 

most famous piece here.  It is very impressive. 

(And anatomically very correct.  Well, if I knew 

what a real Satyr looked like...)

Opposite the Glyptothek, on the south side of the square is the Staatliche Antikensammlung (State Antiques Collections) which was built in the 1840s to be a counterpart to the Glyptothek and to house the collection of smaller Roman and Greek artifacts:  vases, jewelry, bronzes...  I don't find it quite as interesting as the statuary, but I spent a hour or so in there the other day.

The Staatliche Antikensammlungen, south side of the Königsplatz

 

Most of the artifacts in here are from Greece, originating between the third century B.C. to around 400 A.D.   There were lots and lots of decorated vessels, depicting many stories about Greek gods and heroes.







The most impressive part of the Königsplatz has to be the great western gate, built from 1848-1862 to evoke the mighty Propylaea which served as the entrance to the Athenian Acropolis.

The Propyläen dominates Königsplatz, on its western side.

The Propyläen was erected partly as a monument to a son of Ludwig I, who (being second son and therefore not destined to inherit much at home) had been made the first modern king of Greece in 1832.  The friezes here show battle scenes from the Greek War of Independence (1821-32, against the Ottomans) and the crowning of son Otto, King of Greece.  Ironically, the monument was was completed and inaugurated in 1862 only days before Otto was deposed from the Greek throne...









Of course the grandeur of Königsplatz was a huge draw for the Nazi party, which originated in Munich in the 1920s, and after they came to power they built four pompous buildings on the east side of the square.

The southern of the pair of former Ehrentempel, with one of the
Nazi administration buildings behind it.  April 1938.
(Picture from the Bundesarchiv, via Wikipedia)

Two of these were the so-called 

Ehrentempel ("honor temples") which, in open air, housed the sarcophagi of 16 "Nazi martyrs" killed in the failed 1923 Hitler Beer Hall Putsch. 

These were dynamited by the Americans in 1947 as part of de-Nazification, but you can still see the foundations

Current view, roughly same as archive picture above, with the foundation
ruins of the Nazi temple in the foreground of the former Nazi
administration building (now the university center for Egypt studies)

The other two Nazi buildings from the 1930s are still standing (and I sing in one of them, now the College for Music and Theater, every Monday evening, opposite Hitler's office(!)... more about that in another post).  

View of Königsplatz, from inside the Propyläen, c. 1937
(Picture from the Bundesarchiv)

The Nazis laid concrete tile over the entire Königsplatz, to make it effectively into a large parade ground for their rallies.  After the war the tiles were removed, and the square was thankfully restored to its grassy pre-war appearance.
It is now a beautiful part of town, but still a little eerie (as with many places in Munich, which was the "city of the movement") when you think about how central it was to the Nazi party and the horrors they planned here.

Current view, same vantage point.

In the summer there are often outdoor concerts and theater here, and now as the weather improves, you can see many people simply sitting out on the grass, or on the many steps of the museums, enjoying the regal splendor of the place (and often a bottle of beer)...

Athena looks onto the Königsplatz from her
pedestal on the steps of the Antikensammlungen.