According to the Bavarian general conservator Mathias Pfeil, the appearance of Maximilianstraße with its magnificent facades is in danger. “Alongside Ludwigstrasse, Maximilianstrasse is the most important uniformly designed street space of the 19th century in Munich,” he said German press agency. The reason for this is the city’s plans to move the entrance to the opera’s underground car park from Max-Joseph-Platz – to the luxury shopping mile. The expert warns that structures such as access and exit roads or parapet walls would massively impair the appearance of the street.
According to the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments, King Maximilian II ordered a new architectural style from architect Friedrich Bürklein around 1850 for the approximately one and a half kilometer stretch between Max-Joseph-Platz and Maximilianeum and had it implemented as an example: the Maximilian style. In the list of monuments, the boulevard is given a European rank, comparable to Parisian boulevards and avenues or the Ringstrasse in Vienna.
Interior Minister Joachim Herrmann (CSU), formerly also responsible for construction, called Maximilianstrasse 2015 a highlight in Bürklein’s work. He had also created the building for the government of Upper Bavaria and the Maximilianeum, the seat of the state parliament.
Today the street is also famous for its luxury shops, which attract wealthy customers from all over the world. “Such installations would cut through the dimension of the street space, which was the intended expression of the splendor and the claim to power at the time,” said Pfeil. He does not assume that the entrances and exits to the underground car park will fit into the road as discreetly as in the pictures, which are intended to give an impression of the plans.
Pfeil would prefer access to the underground car park via a side street off Maximilianstrasse – a solution that was rejected by the city for reasons of space. From the point of view of the State Office, a slight reversal of the existing exit would also be a realistic and monument-compatible solution.
This is how the new exit into the underground car park of the State Opera in Maximilianstrasse could look.
(Photo: Building Department)
Wild perennials in front of the opera: the greening of Max-Joseph-Platz is the reason for the renovation.
(Photo: Building Department)
Nothing has been decided yet – first the work on the Marienhof for the permanent construction site of the second main S-Bahn line must be completed, since Maximilianstrasse is used as an access road for construction site traffic. As part of an interim solution, Max-Joseph-Platz is to be greened and parts unsealed. If the planning actually starts at some point, a difficult task awaits the planners in view of the many different interests.
The square in front of the State Opera, which has so far been rather faceless, will no longer serve as a driveway for cars to the underground car park, which often accumulates – directly in front of the magnificent staircase of the classical opera house. The city envisions a beautiful, leafy square that invites you to linger. Because the underground car park should still exist, an entrance and exit has to be accommodated somewhere – and that in the tight traffic space at the beginning of Maximilianstraße, where not only the trams but also a lot of people walk or cycle.