Munich: These objects were added to the list of monuments in 2022 – Munich

It’s not just about the beautiful appearance and the decorative postcard facade: Monuments are signs of the culture of their time, which sometimes gnawed at them heartily. Sometimes only fragments are left or they are only discovered by chance during work and uncovered as archaeological heritage. Other witnesses of an epoch, on the other hand, are so young that some are surprised that they are already monuments and are considered more by experts than fleeting fashion.

In Munich, around 6,800 buildings, fountains, bridges, gardens, cemeteries, statues or wayside crosses are listed as monuments. In 2022, 15 new ones were added, an average high value. In the majority of cases, the state capital submits the candidates, which are to be carefully preserved and protected for posterity, to the responsible authority: the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments.

In 2022, for example, the European Patent Office made it onto the list of monuments in the Free State. The mighty black block on the banks of the Isar was built in the 1970s by the office of Gerkan, Marg and Partners. There was a lot of headwind at the time because 24 houses on the Isar had to be demolished – including some Art Nouveau buildings. But even supposedly odd things are now under protection. A small selection of the most recent monuments:

Municipal stadium on Dantestrasse

Like everything that is loved, this building also listens to an abbreviation in the population: The “Dante” is the fourth largest stadium in the city; where once there was space for 32,000 sports fans, today only 12,000 can be squeezed together. It was built as the “district stadium at Dantebad” according to plans by Fritz Beblo and Karl Meitinger and opened on June 2, 1928. The preservationists particularly emphasize the access. On the street side you can still read: “The Munich youth”. A special feature of the building is the trapezoidal, covered grandstand “with multiple flights of stairs and large arched openings”, under which there is a gymnasium and washrooms.

During the National Socialist era, the stadium near the Westfriedhof was used for Hitler Youth parades. According to the club chronicle, FC Bayern, TSV 1860 Munich and FC Wacker played their Gauliga games here in the 1943/44 season. After the fall of the Nazi regime, the US Army discovered the stadium and used it for American football and baseball from 1945 to 1953. Today, the municipal stadium on Dantestrasse in Gern is home to the two Munich American football teams “Cowboys” and “Rangers”. Athletics events, youth football tournaments and school sports festivals also occasionally take place here.

Berlin Bear on the Autobahn

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Big boost in June 1962 on the median of the A9 motorway: The Governing Mayor of Berlin, Willy Brandt, Munich’s Lord Mayor Hans-Jochen Vogel and the Bavarian Minister of the Interior Alfons Goppel unveiled a Berlin bear in bronze at the level of today’s Fröttmaning junction. The heraldic animal of today’s federal capital was created by the sculptor and graphic artist Reneé Sintenis and rests on a high stone plinth. “Munich Berlin” can be read there in capital letters and refers to the idea that was placed on the autobahns all over the country at the time: The “Berlin Milestones” were intended to advertise the political and financial support of the city surrounded by the GDR. At many locations, the distance to Berlin was also given.

The Munich bear is a particularly beautiful and friendly model. Unlike many others, he is not just carved in stone as graffiti, but rises above the traffic as a sculpture; an upright striding animal that gives the impression of wanting to start walking towards the Spree. Incidentally, the bear sculptures awarded at the Berlin Film Festival also come from the hands of Reneé Sintenis. In numerous cities, the “Berlin Milestones” were dismantled, destroyed or stored in unlisted places after the fall of the Wall. As a rule, there was no monument protection for them. For the Munich bear since 2022.

Sign 74 at the Eisbach

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The small art platform above the Eisbach is not the worst place in town to dangle your legs. Rather one of the multiple award-winning. In 2022, another element from this complex on the edge of the English Garden was promoted to the status of a monument: the wing-like sculpture “Sign 74” by the Berlin sculptor Bernhard Heiliger (1915-1995). The suspension of mass and volume and the capture of movement in a static moment are central aspects of his work. In 1956, Heiliger took part in the Venice Biennale, and his “Figure Tree” was commissioned for the German pavilion at the Expo 58 world exhibition in Brussels. His “Sign 74” is in the Tucherpark next to the former IT center of the state central bank – acquired through the mediation of Sep Ruf, one of the most important post-war architects.

Under his leadership, the office district was created in a park-like setting in the late 1960s. The uniformly planned settlement is already entered as an ensemble in the monument list of the Free State. The builder was the Bayerische Vereinsbank. At the end of 2019, the Tucherpark changed hands. The new owner wants to create an urban quarter on the 160,000 square meter property in which work, living and leisure time merge. The “Sign 74” is part of the art park: a zone rich in exhibits of different kinds, which in its entirety is intended to underline the planning and artistic quality of the facility.

Administration building of the Bavarian Reinsurance

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In recent years, buildings from the post-war period have increasingly become the focus of monument preservation: this also includes office and administration buildings – such as the Tucherpark. There are also buildings by the architect Uwe Kiessler. Its administration building, formerly the headquarters of Bavarian Reinsurance at Sederanger 4-6, was recognized as an individual monument together with the sculpture “Sign 74” by Bernd Heiliger.

Kiessler’s glass group building, created in the 1970s, consists of three connected circular reinforced concrete buildings and a free-standing round building; the complex was expanded in the late 1980s. Bayerische Vereinsbank, today Hypovereinsbank, moved from the inner city to the outskirts in the 1960s in order to expand. Nevertheless, it has kept its headquarters in the city. The choice fell on the grounds of the Tivoli art mill in the east of the English Garden. The Tucherpark owes its name to Hans Christoph Freiherr von Tucher (1904-68), spokesman of the board of the Bayerische Vereinsbank. He is considered the initiator of the settlement.

Historical house in Milbertshofen

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In 2022 Milbertshofen got a new monument. This is remarkable in several respects. Firstly, because the residential building with shop at Schleißheimer Strasse 314 was already an investor model: in other words, demolition and a new building at the same location were imminent. Secondly, the north of Munich is not teeming with historical monuments. Ultimately, a request from Evening News the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments drew attention to the fact that the building could be an asset worth preserving. In 1913, the two-storey house with a mansard roof and central bay window was built by Otto Lohner in the reform style. The facade, according to the monument conservators, is still extensively handed down from the construction period.

This justified a detailed examination of monument properties. For the client, a project company, this meant that the building permit process is suspended until a result is available. The owners had planned to demolish and rebuild the residential building with twelve residential units. Nothing will come of it now. The historical inventory is protected with the entry in the list of monuments. And thus a stone witness to the days when Milbertshofen, with its approximately 4000 inhabitants, was transformed from the smallest town in Bavaria into a Munich district.