A total of 18 museums and art venues, more than 40 galleries, six universities and numerous cultural institutions: meet the Kunstareal (Art District)!
“I want to turn Munich into a city which will do Germany honor, so that nobody will know Germany without having seen Munich.”
These words uttered by the artloving monarch King Ludwig I of Bavaria (1786 -1868) introduced a concept of art politics which turned the Medieval town on the Isar river in the 19th century into a leading metropolis of art in Europe.
Ludwig continued the collector’s passion of his predecessors by acquiring objects of art at the antique excavation sites in Greece and the art centers of Rome and Florence in competition with major European collections.
Munich residents were flabbergasted when their King had Classicist monuments put up in the meadows and floodplains in front of the city gates, and thus gave rise to the sobriquets “Athens on the Isar” and “Florence on the Isar”.
Königsplatz with its Glyptothek as well as the Alte and Neue Pinakothek art galleries make Munich a top-class metropolis of culture. A total of 18 museums and art venues, more than 40 galleries, six universities and numerous cultural institutions are accommodated in the Kunstareal today.
Visitors can stroll through and experience 5,000 years of art and cultural history presented in an amazing variety from the City Gallery in Lenbachhaus, the State Museum of Egyptian Art and the Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism, which was opened in 2015, to Museum Brandhorst and Pinakothek der Moderne gallery.
What King Ludwig I announced 200 years ago, still holds true today: Owing to its Kunstareal, Munich ranks among the most important centers of art and culture in Europe and is unique in its combination of art, culture and knowledge.
