Munich - Maximilian Street

(Local Name: Maximilianstrasse) Maximilianstrasse, the third of Munich's prestigious 19th century streets, starts at Max-Joseph-Platz and runs southeastwards to the Isar, ending at the Maximilianeum. This major thoroughfare, conceived by the architect Friedrich Bürklein and constructed in 1851-53, is the link between the Old Town and the suburbs of Lehel and Haidhausen.

Maximilianstrasse today can justly claim to be one of Germany's finest "golden miles". Here are found August Everding's Opera House and the historic Vier Jahreszeiten (Four Seasons) Hotel, the fashion designer Rudolf Mooshammer, the jeweler Bulgari, also Armani, Hermès and Guy Laroche and Charles Schumann. In contrast to the rigorously controlled architecture of his father's Ludwigstrasse, Maximilian II wanted his show street to have a less formal structure: public buildings, shops, hotels, restaurants and gardens were to alternate with one another. This concept, however, was realized only in the western part of the street; the eastern section, like the Ludwigstrasse, consisted predominantly of buildings of imposing monumentality.

For Maximilianstrasse, at Maximilian's behest, a new "uniform architectural style appropriate to the circumstances of our time" was devised - the Maximilianic style, a synthesis of various styles of the past with a predominance of Gothic elements.

Half-way along its course the unity of the Maximilianstrasse is destroyed by its intersection with the Altstadtring, the ring of wide boulevards round the Old Town. In the western half are the Kammerspiele and the world-famous Vier Jahreszeiten Hotel (1856-58). Between the intersection with the Altstadtring and the Isar, in the eastern half of the Maximilianstrasse, are the offices of the regional administration of Upper Bavaria (Regierung von Oberbayern), the Museum of Ethnology, and the Maxmonument.

The vista at the eastern end of Maximilianstrasse is closed by one of the city's most conspicuous landmarks, the Maximilianeum, on the east side of the Isar.