For Munich‘ turning point in Urban Development around 1800 three factors came together:
- A new park is just outside the laid out in the city: the English Garden – an urban setting, which is still valid today.
- Munich loses its fortress status, City walls, ramparts, moats and gates become obsolete and the city can now expand into the surface
- The Bavarian Elector Max-Joseph becomes Bavarian from Napoleon raised king.
The following is a summary taken from the catalogue of our exhibition Munich as planned on DVD or in the Architural Guide of Munich of DOM Publishers.
At the end of the 18th century Munich gains in importance. Elector Karl-Theodor, the predecessor of Max-Joseph, who died in 1789, initiates the innovative turning point with the creation of the English Garden. With the English Garden development begins of the truce as living space for the citizens of Munich. At that time the city was still enclosed in its medieval layout by the defense works. Skipped before she was laid down the electoral planners the design of the English Garden the boundaries of the closed city. The Dismantling of the fortifications begins two years later in 1791 with the decree of Electors and gives freedom to the city and room for expansion. Karl Theodor, Elector Palatinate, ruled in Bavaria since 1777, after the Bavarian line of Wittelsbachs extinct was and thus Bavaria and the Palatinate combined into one dominion became. He was meant for his contemporaries as an important prince of the Enlightenment. In Munich he initiated effective reforms valid until today. For the urban development he gave decisive impulses.
Around 1800: The English Garden
Garden of Enlightenment Idea provider for the urban development projects of Elector Karl Theodor Benjamin Thompson (1753–1814), British subject of american descent, of 1784 in the service of the Bavarian elector. Also the English Garden goes back to his initiative. His However, the garden is given its present form by the town planner and garden artist Friedrich Ludwig Sckell ( 1750-1823). In 1789 he became responsible for planning and plant in Munich ordered before he 1804 final as court garden manager appointed to the Bavarian state capital became. In 1807 Sckell submitted to the king an ideal plan for the English Garden in the style of a landscape garden, the follows the example of nature. Across from the previously applied geometric, French baroque gardens meant this is a fundamental innovation. In addition came in relation to the size at that time of the still fortified Munich impressive dimensions of the garden. Still today it is considered to be one of the largest inner-city ones parks in the world. And he was one of the first major continental Europeans at the time Parks by anyone could enter. Sckell did not work exclusively as a garden artist. He determined since 1808 for almost a decade the guidelines of Urban development, especially in the Planning of the Maxvorstadt, then at the Conversion of the former fortress area on the western periphery of old town. Until 1818 he directed the elaboration of a master plan, the first urban development plan for the whole urban area of Munich. For his merits he was knighted in 1810. As the first large public green space in Munich, known as the Volksgarten to all citizens was open, the English remained Garden until today model for the recreation areas the city. The park at the Hall of Fame, the Maximiliansanlagen the Isar, the Luitpoldpark and the big ones Green spaces of recent times based on this model: the Olympic site, West and East Park and the Park in the trade fair city of Riem.
Max-Joseph-Square – a worthy place for the residence
With the elevation of Bavaria to a kingdom (1806) the plans for the design matured of a residence square, which the newly acquired dignity should express. Until the beginning of the 19th century the Munich Residenz to the south a large monastery closely surrounded. In view from the old town she hardly appeared. It was only in 1802 that secularization was created opportunity to get them out of this position to free. The monastery grew into a large one open space leveled. The square received through the new construction projects three kings its final Shape: by the National Theater, the Königsbau and the colonnade to the south. Center and focus of the system a monument to the first Bavarian Koenig, Max I Joseph. your degree found the urban re-evaluation of the Residenz through the layout of Maximilianstrasse until 1874. It connects the heart of royal Munich with the otherworldly High banks of the Isar, where, as it were like a crown as the end point of perspective raises the Maximilianeum.
Maxvorstadt: the first big city expansion
The founding of Maxvorstadt was the start for the orderly settlement of truce. The new suburb became on the sparsely populated area Northwest of the old town planned. It extended to the Dachauer Landstraße and between the later Elisenstrasse and the Fürstenweg Nymphenburg, then the main link between the city residence of King and his summer palace. Friedrich Ludwig von provided the impetus Sckell, the creator of the English Garden. At his suggestion invited the Munich Building commission a number of Munich Architects, military engineers and surveyors to plan the new suburb and involved a larger one for the first time number of professionals in a competition, which we today as urban planning designate an ideas competition. Draft no. 4 for Maxvorstadt, 1807/08, Friedrich Ludwig Sckell, pencil/pen, colored wash Source: Munich City Archives, LBK 26398 Source: Architekturmuseum Source: Munich City Archives, LBK 26398 Munich, oa-546-1 Source: Munich City Archive, LBK 26398 Source: Munich City Archive, LBK 26398 Developed from a total of 17 drafts the Munich Building Commission Execution plan: A wide-meshed tense street grid, with today’s Brienner Strasse as the main axis. At the same time, building codes the garden city character of the replanning fixed. Construction work began 1809 around Karolinenplatz and on the Brienner Street: Free-standing solitary buildings were created, designed by Carl von Fischer and embedded in sprawling, well Gardens mostly designed by Sckell. The Cooperation between architect and Landscape planner turned out to be the ideal case an artistic working group. It arose in the core of the Maxvorstadt an urban work of art of high rank, today of course can hardly be guessed at.
Ludwigstrasse: a total work of art
By creating a road axis the urban planning shifted to the north Heavyweight Munich from Marienplatz to the royal residence. Ludwig I commissioned already as Crown Prince Leo von Klenze with the planning. Klenze planned in the southern Ludwigstraße initially a small-scale Development based on the pattern of the old town. With increasing expansion large buildings were erected along the new road axis for public or semi-public Institutions rivaled by Klenze’s Frederick gardeners were designed. With the Feldherrnhalle and the Siegestor created gardeners also the degree of the street space to the south and north. Ludwigstrasse was the royal Access to the residence and formed with their dimensions and the architectural version at the same time a place, comparable to the big street markets in old Bavarian cities. under direct Directed by the second Bavarian king an urban-architectural one emerged Total work of art that up today characterizes the cityscape.
Maximilianstraße: jump over the river Isar
The Maximilianstraße was between laid out in 1851 and 1874. The urban significant project fulfilled several tasks: The generous boulevard with the Maximilianeum as the crowning Graduated the bridge over the Isar and opened up at the same time the hitherto neglected Lehel in the river valley. Additional profit for the urban development brought the park-like Formation of the bluff on the other side. King Maximilian II aimed with this Project at the same time on the invention of a new style incorporating the best elements historical models with modern ones Construction technology should connect. planning and construction of the road as well as the design he transferred from sample facades Friedrich Bürklein. Also the building of Government of Upper Bavaria at the forum-like Central section and the Maximilianeum are Bürklein’s work. The construction of the road up to the Isar required beyond the purchase of land a significant effort the city had to bear. an elevated one Dam had to be raised, the crossing under watercourses to this day.