Maxvor stadt
For 200 years: Germany's most exciting neighbourhood. The heart of Munich. Munich Innovation Belt & Isar Valley. Between Altstadt and Schwabing, between Klenze and Kandinsky, between lecture hall and Löwenbräukeller. Parties in the Innovation Lab, Campari Spritz & unicorns.
The little square
is now
Ali-Mitgutsch-Platz.
The triangular island where Barer Straße runs into Nordendstraße had no name for more than 130 years. Now it bears the name of Ali Mitgutsch (1935–2022), inventor of the Wimmelbuch — the German busy picture book — who lived and drew for 58 years at Türkenstraße 54. The city council's municipal committee resolved the naming in April, the district committee is planning a pedestrian zone, a redesign and an inauguration celebration — and since the beginning of October the signs are up. In parallel, the International Youth Library at Blutenburg Castle is showing the retrospective "Augen auf!" until March 2027.
Portrait: Ali Mitgutsch and his square → · City announcement (German) ↗
What was,
what is,
what comes.
Historical alongside contemporary. Past alongside hidden. Browse, skim, look.
of a Quarter
From bastion to bohème: Ludwig I., Sckell's plan, Klenze's ambition and Gärtner's counter.
1933–1945
"Capital of the Movement" — interactive map with 9 sites from the Brown House to today's Documentation Centre.
today
Three areas, four main axes, 52,434 residents — and why the Maxvorstadt is one of Germany's priciest postcodes.
Türken-, Schelling-, Barer- and Augustenstraße: from the Sep-Ruf-Haus to the Schelling-Salon. History, present, rents.
Germany's No. 1 and No. 2 — both in the world's top 50, side by side. Plus UnternehmerTUM, Europe's leading start-up biotope.
& Bohème
One of the world's densest museum quarters — a chronological arc from antiquity to contemporary art.
Pinakotheken, Glyptothek, Brandhorst, Lenbachhaus — 13 houses, from Klenze (1830) to Sauerbruch Hutton (2009).
Thomas Mann, Kandinsky, Klee, Wedekind — why the real "Schwabing" bohème actually lived here.
Bars,
Galleries
Alter Simpl, Schelling-Salon, Lost Weekend — and 200 more addresses for day and night. As of May 2026.
MunichThomas Mann · Gladius Dei, 1902
was radiant
Mann describes here not Schwabing — but life in the Maxvorstadt, Munich's pulsating bohème centre and the heart of Ludwig I.'s Greek revival.
Three maps,
one district.
Quarter
Where Klenze, Gärtner and Ludwig I. thought monumentally and where students fill the Türkenstraße today. Ludwigstraße, LMU, Siegestor, Academy, English Garden.
Quarter & TU
The art quarter around Königsplatz — Klenze's "Athens on the Isar", three Pinakotheken, Brandhorst, Lenbachhaus, NS-Documentation Centre and TU Munich.
From parade ground to Silicon Maxvorstadt — Apple, Google, Bavarian Broadcasting, Augustiner-Bräu, Löwenbräukeller, Circus Krone, Arnulfpark.
Texts
to start with.
- № 01 How a quarter is born — 1791 to 1812
- № 02 Klenze versus Gärtner — a dossier
- № 03 Königsplatz — Athens on the Isar
- № 04 Blue Rider, Munich New Secession, the Schwabing myth
- № 05 Where Maxvorstadt ends — and Schwabing begins
- № 06 200 addresses for day and night
- № 07 Franz Höllriegel — King Ludwig's Stonemason
- № 08 Jewish Maxvorstadt — Past and Present
- № 09 Yad Vashem in Maxvorstadt — the first Education Center outside Israel
- № 10 Marcel Duchamp 1912 — the scene of his complete liberation
- № 11 Ali Mitgutsch — the father of the Wimmelbuch and his square
Tell us what
we should know.
A new address, a correction, an anecdote from the quarter — we welcome every note. No tracking, no marketing, no mailing list.