Kaufingerstraße in Munich

30 November 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Shopping Reading Time:  7 minutes

© Usien/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Usien/cc-by-sa-3.0

Neuhauser Straße is part of the first and largest pedestrian zone in Munich‘s Old Town. Here is a large number of retail shops and restaurants to be found. According to an analysis by Jones Lang LaSalle in 2015, Kaufingerstraße is the most expensive shopping street in Germany with a top rent of 360 euros per square meter. The road runs almost straight ahead in the southeast-northwest direction out of town, from the intersection Färbergraben, or Augustinerstraße, to Karlsplatz (Stachus). It has a length of about 350 meters. In the direction of Marienplatz, Neuhauser Straße becomes Kaufingerstraße. Below the Neuhauser Straße and the Kaufingerstraße are the main lines of the S-Bahn that runs between the stops Marienplatz and Karlsplatz.   read more…

Portrait: Hans and Sophie Scholl

25 July 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Portrait Reading Time:  8 minutes

Ludwig Maximilians University Munich - Lichthof © Cfaerber/cc-by-sa-3.0

Ludwig Maximilians University Munich – Lichthof © Cfaerber/cc-by-sa-3.0

Hans and Sophie Scholl, often referred to in German as die Geschwister Scholl (literally: the Scholl siblings), were a brother and sister who were members of the White Rose, a student group in Munich that was active in the non-violent resistance movement in Nazi Germany, especially in distributing flyers against the war and the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler. In post-war Germany, Hans and Sophie Scholl are recognized as symbols of the Christian German resistance movement against the totalitarian Nazi regime.   read more…

Munich Security Conference (MSC)

4 July 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  8 minutes

© securityconference.de

© securityconference.de

The Munich Security Conference (MSC; German: Münchner Sicherheitskonferenz) is an annual conference on international security policy that has taken place in Munich since 1963. Former names are Wehrkundetagung and Münchner Konferenz für Sicherheitspolitik. It is the world’s largest gathering of its kind. Over the past four decades the Munich Security Conference has become the most important independent forum for the exchange of views by international security policy decision-makers. Each year it brings together about 350 senior figures from more than 70 countries around the world to engage in an intensive debate on current and future security challenges.   read more…

Portrait: Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, first winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics

23 May 2018 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Portrait Reading Time:  16 minutes

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen was a German mechanical engineer and physicist, who, on 8 November 1895, produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range known as X-rays or Röntgen rays, an achievement that earned him the first Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. In honour of his accomplishments, in 2004 the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) named element 111, roentgenium, a radioactive element with multiple unstable isotopes, after him.   read more…

The Olympic Park in Munich

18 December 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks, Sport Reading Time:  21 minutes

Olympic Park Munich © Tobi 87/cc-by-sa-4.0

Olympic Park Munich © Tobi 87/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Olympiapark München (English: Olympic Park Munich) in Munich is an Olympic Park which was constructed for the 1972 Summer Olympics. Located in the Oberwiesenfeld neighborhood of Munich, the Park continues to serve as a venue for cultural, social, and religious events such as events of worship. The Park is administered by Olympiapark München GmbH, a holding company fully owned by the state capital of Munich. The concept of a “green Olympic Games” was chosen, and so too was the orientation toward the ideals of democracy. Officials sought to integrate optimism toward the future with a positive attitude toward technology, and in so doing set aside memories of the past, such as the Olympic Games of 1936 in Berlin. The architecture firm of Günther Behnisch and its partners developed a comprehensive master plan for the sports and recreation area, which was under construction from 1968 until 1972. The landscape layout was designed by landscape architect Günther Grzimek. The eye-catching tensile structure that covers much of the park was designed by German architect and engineer Frei Otto with Günther Behnisch. In all, the project cost 1.35 billion German Marks to complete.   read more…

Nymphenburg Palace in Munich

4 December 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Museums, Exhibitions, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  20 minutes

Nymphenburg Palace © Richard Bartz/cc-by-sa-2.5

Nymphenburg Palace © Richard Bartz/cc-by-sa-2.5

The Nymphenburg Palace (“Castle of the Nymph“), is a Baroque palace in Munich, Bavaria. The palace was the main summer residence of the former rulers of Bavaria of the House of Wittelsbach. The palace, together with its park, is now one of the most famous sights of Munich. The baroque facades comprise an overall width of about 700 metres. Some rooms still show their original baroque decoration while others were later redesigned in rococo or neoclassical style. The palace serves also as headquarters of the Bavarian Administration of State-Owned Palaces, Gardens and Lakes. The palace was commissioned by the prince-electoral couple Ferdinand Maria and Henriette Adelaide of Savoy to the designs of the Italian architect Agostino Barelli in 1664 after the birth of their son Maximilian II Emanuel. The central pavilion was completed in 1675. As a building material it utilised limestone from Kelheim. The castle was gradually expanded and transformed over the years. Starting in 1701, Maximilian Emanuel, the heir to Bavaria, a sovereign electorate of the Holy Roman Empire, undertook a systematic extension of the palace. Two pavilions were added each in the south and north of Barelli’s palace by Enrico Zucalli and Giovanni Antonio Viscardi and were connected with the centre pavilion by two gallery wings. In 1716, Joseph Effner redesigned the facade of the centre pavilion in French Baroque style with pilasters. Later, the south section of the palace was further extended to build the court stables (1719). For the sake of balance, the orangery building was added to the north which was only completed in 1758. Finally, Nymphenburg Palace was completed with a grand circle (the Schlossrondell) of Baroque mansions (the so-called Kavaliershäuschen – cavalier’s lodges) erected under Maximilian Emanuel’s son Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII Albert. In 1795, Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria ordered the widening of the galleries on the park side. In 1826, under King Ludwig I of Bavaria, his architect Leo von Klenze removed the gables of the main pavilion with the Electoral coat of arms and created an attic style decoration directly under the roof instead.   read more…

Elmau Palace in Bavaria

6 November 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Hotels, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  12 minutes

© Schloss Elmau/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Schloss Elmau/cc-by-sa-3.0

Schloss Elmau, built by the architect Carl Sattler in the style of Reformarchitektur during WW1 between 1914 and 1916, is a two-story listed monument with hipped roof, tower and porch, situated between Garmisch-Partenkirchen and Mittenwald in Bavaria. It lies at the foot of the Wetterstein mountains in a Naturschutzgebiet (nature reserve), belonging to the Krün municipality. The land was purchased in 1912 by the Lutheran theologian Johannes Müller (1864-1949), brother-in-law of Carl Sattler, who wrote articles now widely considered as Anti-Judaism. Prince Maximilian of Baden, Reichskanzler in 1918, and the Lutheran theologian Adolf von Harnack were close friends. Financier of the building was Elsa Gräfin Waldersee, née Haniel. There were eleven children, including Ingrid, Bernhard and Sieglinde.   read more…

500 years German Beer Purity Law

14 March 2016 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  11 minutes

Munich beer purity law from 1487 © Evergreen68/cc-by-sa-3.0

Munich beer purity law from 1487 © Evergreen68/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Reinheitsgebot, sometimes called the “German Beer Purity Law” in English, is the collective name for a series of regulations limiting the ingredients in beer in Germany and its predecessor states. The most well-known version of the law was adopted in Bavaria in 1516, but similar regulations predate the Bavarian order, and modern regulations also significantly differ from the 1516 Bavarian version. The most influential predecessor of the modern Reinheitsgebot was a law first adopted in the duchy of Munich in 1487. After Bavaria was reunited, the Munich law was adopted across the entirety of Bavaria on April 23, 1516. As Germany unified, Bavaria pushed for adoption of this law on a national basis. According to the 1516 Bavarian law, the only ingredients that could be used in the production of beer were water, barley and hops. The 1516 Bavarian law set the price of beer (depending on the time of year and type of beer), limited the profits made by innkeepers, and made confiscation the penalty for making impure beer.   read more…

Oberpollinger in München

1 December 2015 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, House of the Month, Shopping Reading Time:  6 minutes

© M(e)ister Eiskalt/cc-by-sa-4.0

© M(e)ister Eiskalt/cc-by-sa-4.0

The Oberpollinger is a known department store in Neuhauser Strasse in Munich. It is run by the The KaDeWe Group GmbH and is the largest by area department store in southern Germany. The building was built in 1905 by Max Littmann in the style of historicism, in the form of Neo-Renaissance and is a listed building.   read more…

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