Culture
[edit]
Language[edit]
Main article: Bavarian language
German is spoken and understood in and around Munich. While the German language has many dialects, so-called "Standard German" or "High German" is learned in schools and spoken among Germans, Austrians and in some parts of Switzerland. A speaker of a Low German dialect in Hamburg may find it difficult to understand the dialect of a Bavarian mountaineer. The Bavarian dialects are recognized as regional languages and continue to be spoken alongside Standard German.
Museums[edit]
The Deutsches Museum is the world's largest museum of science and technology.
The gothic Morris dancers of Erasmus Grasser are exhibited in the Munich City Museum in the old gothic arsenal building in the inner city.
In 1903 Oskar von Miller assembled a group of engineers and industrialists, who chartered the Deutsches Museum. The Museum was built with the financial support of the German business and imperial nobility community, as well as the blessing of Wilhelm II, German Emperor. The Deutsches Museum had its grand opening in 1925; it is the world's largest museum of science and technology. The Deutsches Museum now operates three locations. The original site in central Munich continues to expand its exhibits.
Bavarian National Museum
The city has several important art galleries, most of which can be found in the Kunstareal. The Lenbachhaus displays works of the movement Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), a Munich-based modernist art. Starting in the 1970s, German municipalities started to respond to cultural tourism and invested in public museums. The Neue Pinakothek, like other German museums, was wholly reconstructed from 1974 until 1981. The Pinakothek der Moderne exhibits an eclectic mix of contemporary art. The principal focus of its permanent collection is Classical Moderns, but the displays are enhanced continuously with gifts from private collections.
City guides published in the early 1860s directed tourists to Munich's architecture and art collections, which at the time were unique in Germany and are a legacy mainly of Ludwig I of Bavaria, with contributions from Maximilian II of Bavaria. The Alte Pinakothek contains works of European masters between the 14th and 18th centuries. Major displays include Albrecht Dürer's Self-Portrait (1500), his Four Apostles, Raphael's paintings The Canigiani Holy Family and Madonna Tempi as well as Peter Paul Rubens large Judgment Day.
The Glyptothek houses King Ludwig I's collection of Greek and Roman sculptures.
An extensive collection of Greek and Roman art is held in the Glyptothek and the Staatliche Antikensammlungen (the State Antiquities Collections). Works on display include the Medusa Rondanini, the Barberini Faun and figures from the Temple of Aphaea on Aegina for the Glyptothek. Another museum is the Staatliche Sammlung für Ägyptische Kunst (the State Collection of Egyptian Art).
Several public collections of LMU Munich are still housed in the Kunstareal. The expanded state collections are housed in the Paläontologisches Museum München, and the Zoologische Staatssammlung München.[citation needed] After the first German art exhibition in the Glaspalast for an international audience in 1869, Munich emerged as a focal point for the arts. Men of distinction from around the world visited the Academy of Fine Arts under the directorship of Karl von Piloty and later Wilhelm von Kaulbach.
The Museum Five Continents is the second largest collection in Germany of artefacts and objects from outside Europe, while the Bavarian National Museum and the adjoining Bavarian State Archaeological Collection display regional art and cultural history. The Schackgalerie is an important gallery of German 19th-century paintings.
The memorial museum of the former Dachau concentration camp is just outside the city.
Music[edit]
Munich is a major international musical centre and has played host to many prominent composers including Orlande de Lassus, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Carl Maria von Weber, Richard Wagner, Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Max Reger and Carl Orff. Some of classical music's best-known compositions have been created in and around Munich by composers born in the area, for example, Richard Strauss's tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra or Carl Orff's Carmina Burana.[citation needed]
Opera[edit]
The National Theatre is home to the Bavarian State Opera and the Bavarian State Orchestra.
Richard Wagner was a supporter of William I, German Emperor, but Wagner only found a generous patron in Ludwig II of Bavaria. 1870 til 1871 Wagner premiered Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Mastersingers of Nuremberg) in Munich, a popular success for Wagner and King Ludwig II. Wagner premiered at the Hoftheater, now the National Theatre Munich, with Angelo Quaglio the Younger designing the premiere production.
Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz
The National Theatre Munich is now home to the Bavarian State Opera and the Bavarian State Orchestra. Next door, the modern Residenz Theatre was erected in the building that also houses the Cuvilliés Theatre. The Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz is a state theater while another opera house, the Prinzregententheater, has become the home of the Bavarian Theater Academy and the Munich Chamber Orchestra.
Orchestra[edit]
The modern Gasteig centre houses the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra. The third orchestra in Munich with international importance is the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Its primary concert venue is the Herkulessaal in the former city royal residence, the Munich Residenz. Many important conductors have been attracted by the city's orchestras, including Felix Weingartner, Hans Pfitzner, Hans Rosbaud, Hans Knappertsbusch, Sergiu Celibidache, James Levine, Christian Thielemann, Lorin Maazel, Rafael Kubelík, Eugen Jochum, Sir Colin Davis, Mariss Jansons, Bruno Walter, Georg Solti, Zubin Mehta and Kent Nagano. A stage for shows, big events and musicals is the Deutsche Theater. It is Germany's largest theatre for guest performances.
Pop and electronica[edit]
Munich was the centre of Krautrock in southern Germany, with many important bands such as Amon Düül II, Embryo or Popol Vuh hailing from the city. In the 1970s, the Musicland Studios developed into one of the most prominent recording studios in the world, with bands such as the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Queen recording albums there. Munich also played a significant role in the development of electronic music, with genre pioneer Giorgio Moroder, who invented synth disco and electronic dance music, and Donna Summer, one of disco music's most important performers, both living and working in the city. In the late 1990s, Electroclash was substantially co-invented if not even invented in Munich, when DJ Hell introduced and assembled international pioneers of this musical genre through his International DeeJay Gigolo Records label here.
Other notable musicians and bands from Munich include Konstantin Wecker, Willy Astor, Spider Murphy Gang, Münchener Freiheit, Lou Bega, Megaherz, FSK, Colour Haze and Sportfreunde Stiller.[citation needed]
Munich hosted several Love Parades and Mayday Party rave events throughout the 1990s. Munich continues to rave, the local youth scenes are active.
Theatre[edit]
The Munich Kammerspiele is one of the most important German-language theaters. Since Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's premieres in 1775 many important writers have staged their plays in Munich, they include Christian Friedrich Hebbel, Henrik Ibsen, and Hugo von Hofmannsthal.[citation needed]
Schwabing[edit]
Wassily Kandinsky's Houses in Munich (1908)
At the turn of the 20th century Schwabing was a preeminent cultural metropolis. Schwabing was an epicenter for both literature and the fine arts, with numerous German and non-German artists living there.
Vladimir Lenin authored What Is to Be Done? while living in Schwabing. Central to Schwabing's bohemian scene were Künstlerlokale (Artist's Cafés) like Café Stefanie or Kabarett Simpl, whose liberal ways differed fundamentally from Munich's more traditional localities. The Simpl, which survives to this day, was named after Munich's anti-authoritarian satirical magazine Simplicissimus, founded in 1896 by Albert Langen and Thomas Theodor Heine, which quickly became an important organ of the Schwabinger Bohème. Its caricatures and biting satirical attacks on Wilhelmine German society were the result of countless of collaborative efforts by many of the best visual artists and writers from Munich and elsewhere.[citation needed]
In 1971 Eckart Witzigmann teamed up with a Munich building contractor to finance and open the Tantris restaurant in Schwabing. Witzigmann is credited for starting the German Küchenwunder (kitchen wonder).
Biedermeier[edit]
The Biedermeier era was named after a character that regularly appeared in the satire magazine Münchner Fliegende Blätter (Loose Munich Pages), which was published by Adolf Kussmaul and Ludwig Eichrodt in Munich between 1855 and 1857. Biedermeier was a synonym for arts, furniture, and the lifestyle of the nonheroic middle class. The Biedermeier era painters Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, Moritz von Schwind, and Carl Spitzweg are shown in the Neue Pinakothek.
Prinzregentenzeit[edit]
Celebrity literary figures worked in Munich especially during the final decades of the Kingdom of Bavaria, the so-called Prinzregentenzeit (literally prince regent's time) under the reign of Luitpold, Prince Regent of Bavaria. This includes Thomas Mann, Heinrich Mann, Paul Johann Ludwig von Heyse, Rainer Maria Rilke, Ludwig Thoma, Fanny zu Reventlow, Oskar Panizza, Gustav Meyrink, Max Halbe, Erich Mühsam and Frank Wedekind.
Weimar Republic[edit]
Portrait of Oskar Maria Graf by Georg Schrimpf (1927)
The period immediately before World War I saw continued economic and cultural prominence for the city. Thomas Mann wrote in his novella Gladius Dei about this period: "München leuchtete" (literally "Munich shone"). Munich remained a centre of cultural life during the Weimar Republic, with figures such as Lion Feuchtwanger, Bertolt Brecht, Peter Paul Althaus, Stefan George, Ricarda Huch, Joachim Ringelnatz, Oskar Maria Graf, Annette Kolb, Ernst Toller, Hugo Ball, and Klaus Mann adding to the already established big names.
Karl Valentin, the cabaret performer and comedian, is to this day remembered and beloved as a cultural icon of his hometown. Between 1910 and 1940, he wrote and performed in many absurdist sketches and short films that were highly influential, earning him the nickname of "Charlie Chaplin of Germany".
Liesl Karlstadt, before working together with Valentin, cross-dressed and performed cabaret with yodeling on stage and in Munich's Cafe-Theatres. The cabaret scene was crushed when the Nazis seized power in 1933 and Karlstadt was saved from Nazi sterilization by a doctor. Contemporary Munich cabaret still reverences 1920s cabaret, the Munich alternative rock band F.S.K. absorbs yodels.
Post-war literature[edit]
After World War II, Munich soon again became a focal point of the German literary scene and remains so to this day, with writers as diverse as Wolfgang Koeppen, Erich Kästner, Eugen Roth, Alfred Andersch, Elfriede Jelinek, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Michael Ende, Franz Xaver Kroetz, Gerhard Polt and Patrick Süskind calling the city their home.[citation needed]
Fine arts[edit]
From the Gothic to the Baroque era, the fine arts were represented in Munich by artists like Erasmus Grasser, Jan Polack, Johann Baptist Straub, Ignaz Günther, Hans Krumpper, Ludwig von Schwanthaler, Cosmas Damian Asam, Egid Quirin Asam, Johann Baptist Zimmermann, Johann Michael Fischer and François de Cuvilliés. Munich had already become an important place for painters like Carl Rottmann, Lovis Corinth, Wilhelm von Kaulbach, Carl Spitzweg, Franz von Lenbach, Franz Stuck, Karl Piloty and Wilhelm Leibl.[citation needed]
Cinema[edit]
Munich was (and in some cases, still is) home to many of the most important authors of the New German Cinema movement, including Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Edgar Reitz and Herbert Achternbusch. In 1971, the Filmverlag der Autoren was founded, cementing the city's role in the movement's history. Munich served as the location for many of Fassbinder's films, among them Ali: Fear Eats the Soul. The Hotel Deutsche Eiche near Gärtnerplatz was somewhat like a centre of operations for Fassbinder and his "clan" of actors. New German Cinema is considered by far the most important artistic movement in German cinema history since the era of German Expressionism in the 1920s.
Logo of Bavaria Film
In 1919, the Bavaria Film Studios were founded, which developed into one of Europe's largest film studios. Directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Billy Wilder, Orson Welles, John Huston, Ingmar Bergman, Stanley Kubrick, Claude Chabrol, Fritz Umgelter, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Wolfgang Petersen and Wim Wenders made films there. Among the internationally well-known films produced at the studios are The Pleasure Garden (1925) by Alfred Hitchcock, The Great Escape (1963) by John Sturges, Paths of Glory (1957) by Stanley Kubrick, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971) by Mel Stuart and both Das Boot (1981) and The Neverending Story (1984) by Wolfgang Petersen. Munich remains one of the centres of the German film and entertainment industry.
Festivals[edit]
The Oktoberfest is the world's largest beer festival, attracting around seven million visitors every year.
Coopers' Dance[edit]
Schäfflertanz in Neuhausen, 2012
The Coopers' Dance (German: Schäfflertanz) is a guild dance of coopers originally started in Munich. Beginning in the early 1800s the custom spread via the travels of journeymen, and it is now a common tradition throughout the Old Bavaria region. The dance was supposed to be held every seven years.
Strong Beer Festival[edit]
Munich is home to the famous Nockherberg Strong Beer Festival (German: Starkbierfest) during the Lenten fasting period (usually in March). Its origins go back to the 17th/18th century, but has become popular when the festivities were first televised in the 1980s. The festival includes comical speeches and a mini-musical in which numerous German politicians are parodied by look-alike actors.
Frühlingsfest[edit]
Held for two weeks at the Theresienwiese from the end of April to the beginning of May, celebrating and serving the new local spring beers.
Auer Dult[edit]
Main article: Auer Dult
A regular event combining a market and a German style folk festival on the Mariahilfplatz. The Auer Dult can be up to 300 stalls, selling handmade crafts, household goods, and local foods.
Kocherlball[edit]
Munich's Kocherlball (Cooks' Ball) is an annual event to commemorate all servants, ranging from kitchenhands to cooks. The tradition started in the 19th century.
Tollwood[edit]
Tollwood Festival
Usually held annually in July and December at Olympia Park. The Tollwood Festival showcases fine and performing arts with live music, and several lanes of booths selling handmade crafts, as well as organic food, mostly fusion cuisine.
Oktoberfest[edit]
At Theresienwiese, Munich's Oktoberfest, the largest beer festival and Volksfest in the world, runs for 16–18 days from the end of September through early October. In the last 200 years the festival has grown to span 85 acres and now welcomes over six million visitors every year. Beer is served from the six major Munich breweries: Augustiner-Bräu, Hacker-Pschorr Brewery, Löwenbräu Brewery, Paulaner Brewery, Spaten-Franziskaner-Bräu, and Staatliches Hofbräuhaus in München.[citation needed] Food must be bought in each tent.
Christkindlmarkt[edit]
The Munich Christkindlmarkt started to evolve in the 14th century. The German Christkindlmarkt reached the desired accomplishment[clarification needed] in the 17th century in Nuremberg.
Cuisine and culinary specialities[edit]
Weißwurst with sweet mustard and a pretzel
Munich cuisine is a part of the broader Bavarian cuisine. Munich Weißwurst ("white sausage", German: Münchner Weißwurst) was invented in the city in 1857 and is a Munich speciality. Traditionally Weißwurst is served in pubs before noon and is served with sweet mustard and freshly baked pretzels.
Munich has 11 restaurants that have been awarded one or more Michelin Guide stars in 2021.
Beers and breweries[edit]
Beer garden in Munich
Munich is known for its breweries and Weissbier (wheat beer). Helles, a pale lager with a translucent gold color, is the most popular contemporary Munich beer. Helles has largely replaced Munich's dark beer, known as Dunkel, which gets its color from roasted malt. It was the typical beer in Munich in the 19th century. Starkbier is the strongest Munich beer, with a high alcohol content of 6%–9%. It is dark amber in color and has a heavy malty taste. The beer served at Oktoberfest is a special type of beer with a higher alcohol content.
Wirtshäuser are traditional Bavarian pubs, many of which also have small outside areas. Biergärten (beer gardens) are a popular fixture in Munich's gastronomic landscape. They are central to the city's culture, and are an overt melting pot for members of all walks of life, regardless of social class. There are many smaller beer gardens, but some beer gardens have thousands of seats. Large beer gardens can be found in the Englischer Garten, on the Nockherberg, and in the Hirschgarten.
The six main breweries in Munich are Augustiner-Bräu, Hacker-Pschorr Brewery, Hofbräuhaus, Löwenbräu, Paulaner, and Spaten-Franziskaner-Bräu. Smaller breweries are becoming more prevalent in Munich.
Circus[edit]
The Circus Krone based in Munich is one of the largest circuses in Europe. It was the first and still is one of only a few in Western Europe to also occupy a building of its own.
Nightlife[edit]
Nightlife in Munich is located mostly in the boroughs Ludwigsvorstadt-Isarvorstadt, Maxvorstadt, Au-Haidhausen, Berg am Laim and Sendling. Between Sendlinger Tor and Maximiliansplatz, on the edge of the central Altstadt-Lehel district, there is also the so-called Feierbanane (party banana), a roughly banana-shaped unofficial party zone spanning 1.3 km (0.8 mi) along Sonnenstraße, characterized by a high concentration of clubs, bars and restaurants, which became the center of Munich's nightlife in the mid-2000s.
Bahnwärter Thiel
In the 1960s and 1970s, Schwabing was considered a center of nightlife in Germany, with internationally known clubs such as Big Apple, PN hit-house, Domicile, Hot Club, Piper Club, Tiffany, Germany's first large-scale discotheque Blow Up and the underwater nightclub Yellow Submarine, and Munich has been called "New York's big disco sister" in this context. Bars in the Schwabing district of this era include, among many others, Schwabinger 7 and Schwabinger Podium. Since the 1980s, however, Schwabing has lost much of its nightlife activity due to gentrification and the resulting high rents, and the formerly wild artists' and students' quarter developed into one of the city's most coveted and expensive residential districts, attracting affluent citizens with little interest in partying.
Beginning in the 1960s, the Rosa Viertel (pink quarter) developed in the Glockenbachviertel and around Gärtnerplatz, which in the 1980s made Munich "one of the four gayest metropolises in the world" along with San Francisco, New York City and Amsterdam. In particular, the area around Müllerstraße and Hans-Sachs-Straße was characterized by numerous gay bars and nightclubs. One of them was the travesty nightclub Old Mrs. Henderson, where Freddie Mercury, who lived in Munich from 1979 to 1985, filmed the music video for the song "Living on My Own" at his 39th birthday party.
Since the mid-1990s, the Kunstpark Ost and its successor Kultfabrik, a former industrial complex that was converted to a large party area near München Ostbahnhof in Berg am Laim, hosted more than 30 clubs and was especially popular among younger people from the metropolitan area surrounding Munich and tourists. The Kultfabrik was closed at the end of the year 2015 to convert the area into a residential and office area. Apart from the Kultfarbik and the smaller Optimolwerke, there is a wide variety of establishments in the urban parts of nearby Haidhausen. Before the Kunstpark Ost, there had already been an accumulation of internationally known nightclubs in the remains of the abandoned former Munich-Riem Airport.
Blitz Club on Museumsinsel
Munich nightlife tends to change dramatically and quickly. Establishments open and close every year, and due to gentrification and the overheated housing market many survive only a few years, while others last longer. Beyond the already mentioned venues of the 1960s and 1970s, nightclubs with international recognition in recent history included Tanzlokal Größenwahn, The Atomic Café and the techno clubs Babalu Club, Ultraschall, KW – Das Heizkraftwerk, Natraj Temple, MMA Club (Mixed Munich Arts), Die Registratur and Bob Beaman. From 1995 to 2001, Munich was also home to the Union Move, one of the largest technoparades in Germany.
Munich has the highest density of music venues of any German city, followed by Hamburg, Cologne and Berlin. Within the city's limits are more than 100 nightclubs and thousands of bars and restaurants.
Popular techno nightclubs are Blitz Club, Harry Klein, Rote Sonne, Bahnwärter Thiel, Pimpernel, Charlie, Palais and Pathos. Popular mixed music clubs are Call me Drella, Wannda Circus, Tonhalle, Backstage, Muffathalle, Ampere, Pacha, P1, Zenith, Minna Thiel and the party ship Alte Utting.
