Munich is where life imitates art. Indeed, in this picturesque, semi-real urban setting, art is never too far, it seems well-integrated into everyday flows, of people and traffic. The city’s hottest new hotel, the Lovelace, is itself an overdesigned but interesting art project. While still not a match to the heights of the culture and gastronomy pairing achieved by some museum and theater venues of Paris, Vienna or New York, Munich certainly tries. And succeeds. The Literaturhaus hosts one of the city’s most welcoming cafes, Brasserie Oskar Maria. Haus der Kunst hides one of the most popular bars, the Goldene Bar. And there is a Dallmayr branded restaurant in the Bavarian State Opera Theater. Munich’s most ornate churches – St Michael Kirche, Asamkirche, Theatinerkirche, and Heiliggeistkirche – are on the city’s busiest shopping streets, Neuhauserstrasse, Asamstrasse, Theatinerstrasse, and Tal, respectively. Its most admired sculpted monuments too are planted right on its most visited squares and avenues – even if less conspicuously than in Paris or Vienna, of which Max-Joseph-Platz, Wittesbacherplatz, and Odeonsplatz are just a few examples.
And yet, Munich’s impressive artistic repository somehow seems dwarfed next to the appeal of all that shopping, plentiful and user-friendly. And especially women’s shopping, or so I hear. The clean, colorful, compact center of this Bavarian city, defined by ornate squares and anchored by busy markets, is pierced by – not one, three! – long, straight pedestrianized streets, dedicated to little other than shopping. Make no mistake: the Altstsdt hides a rich heritage of late Renaissance, Mannerist, and Neoclassical architecture, some of the best Baroque and Rococo detail, and stunning church and palace interiors. It also displays excellent art collections – superbly curated, compartmentalized, and apportioned among a number of repositories of palatial proportions – many of them grouped in a segregated, purpose-built museum quarter, dedicated to education and celebration of classical and modern arts. Much like Berlin’s Museumsinsel – Museum Island – only larger, older and more authentic. But acknowledging Munich’s stock of monumental palaces and their collections – and paying attention to Thorvaldsen, von Klenze and Durer – requires an effort, an exertion, a commitment to discovery, to dislocation in space and time. The city’s commercial outlets, on the other hand, are in plain sight, and at every step: smart store fronts of international luxury brands and local designer boutiques line the streets of Altstadt and beyond. Multistory department stores, historic and new, anchor its city blocks at each ends and frame its intersections, some of them offering picture perfect views from their top floor café terrace tables. Not that different from other cities, but fully on the brink of shopping overload, and shinier. Munich‘s populace – young and middle aged alike – is handsome, exceedingly well-dressed, and characteristically stylish. The high standards in dress and style are fueled by the city’s thriving indigenous fashion and shopping scene, not a surprise given Munich‘s matter-of-fact character.
All the beauty and refinement aside, there is something hollow and dull about the city fabric of the Bavarian capital, as if its core was gutted and repurposed for some mundane everyday use – specifically, shopping. Pervasive, all-consuming, consumerist, and egregiously commercial. Even if smart, affordable, vast yet easy to navigate. Walking around the city center, it seems like all available midblock space – whether designed-in, reclaimed, or carved out of the city’s dense building stock – has been repossessed by some activist lender, handed off to a ruthless developer, and forcefully converted to retail. With ruthless German efficiency. And on industrial scale. City life in the winter revolves – beer halls, market stands, and skating rink aside – around these pedestrian shopping streets, midblock shopping galleries, and underpass retail spaces.
As a result, much of Munich from street level reads like a network of shopping arcades, anchored by a web of espresso counters. A far cry from masterfully executed glass shopping galleries of the Italian cities: the exquisite Vittorio Emanuele in Milan, the monumental Umberto in Naples or the elegant Mazzini in Genoa. Munich’s are somewhere between a modern version of the Paris arcades of the 1830s that formed its fashionable center until marginalized in the age of the department store a half century later – Passage des Panoramas, Galerie Vivienne, or Vero-Dodat – and your neighborhood mall. Enough said. Munich’s web of inner city arcades – hosted in design-conscious venues behind shiny storefronts and dealing in goods not without style and of overwhelmingly fine quality – is just like any other commercial city center, only more so.
If window shopping is a must for you, there is a way to combine it with some cultural intake – simply walk around and pay attention. Of note here are the elegant and superbly decorated upscale shop windows along Odeondplatz, Theatinerstrasse, and Briennerstrasse with its world class window displays. Or take Maxburgstrasse and a section of Pacellistrase closer to Maximilianplatz to the NW as the area’s natural extension. Or the more pedestrian, in more ways than one, Neuhauserstrasse and Kauffingerstrasse along the axis that links Karlsplatz (Stachus to locals) with Marienplatz. Check out Sonnenstrasse down to Sedlinger Tor-Platz or Sendlingerstrasse with the nearby pedestrianized retail area between Hackenstrasse and Farbergraben. A few places around the cultural sights in the Maxvorstadt area to the N of the center offer the promise of a good walk-shop mix – as long as you stick to the cross streets. You should still be able to acknowledge Ludwig I’s transformational scheme when crossing the intimidating avenues on your way elsewhere w/o having to walk along their length for too long. Konigsplatz by Ludwig I is of the same category. Across the old town, Frauenstrasse and beyond, outside the ring and towards the river, bounded by Fraunhoferstrasse. Just North of Altstadt is the 1.2km long Maximilianstrasse, lined with international fashion outposts you can find anywhere. Just don’t forget this cultural capital offers so much more than shopping, and does it with rare grace and meticulous attention to detail.
