Alte
Pinakothek
The largest museum in the world when it opened in 1836. Klenze's building houses the Wittelsbach painting collection — Dürer, Rubens, Rembrandt, Titian, Botticelli. World-class with 700 paintings.
Klenze's gallery manifesto
Ludwig I commissioned Leo von Klenze in 1826–1836 to build a monumental gallery that was the largest museum in the world on opening: 127 metres long, with a central staircase, side cabinets for smaller works and the famous gallery loggia on the south side. The building became a model for galleries in Berlin, Saint Petersburg and Brussels — the "Pinakothek scheme". Material: brick with sandstone articulation; severely damaged in the Second World War.
The reconstruction was carried out 1952–1957 by Hans Döllgast — considered a masterpiece of post-war heritage conservation: Döllgast closed the bombed gaps in a modern, emphatically visible brick style that did not conceal the wound but restored the gallery.
The collection
Over 700 paintings from the 14th–18th centuries: Albrecht Dürer (seven self-portraits and major works), Peter Paul Rubens (one of the world's largest Rubens collections, with the 33-painting Medici-cycle counterpart), Rembrandt, Titian, Botticelli, Leonardo, Raphael, Brueghel, Bosch, El Greco. Admission on Sundays 1 euro.
More in the
Museum Quarter.
The other buildings of the area — galleries, museums, classicism, industrial history.