The design collection
Chairs, cars and early computers downstairs.
The Pinakothek der Moderne is not one museum but four under a single roof: the state collection of modern art, the design collection known as Die Neue Sammlung, the architecture museum of Munich's technical university, and the state collection of prints and drawings. The four were brought together in one building by Stephan Braunfels, opened in 2002 after years of stalled funding that a public donation campaign eventually rescued. The architectural heart is the central rotunda, a white circular hall under a dome some twenty-five metres across with a single eye of light at its centre; every wing branches off it, so the building is hard to get lost in. The design collection in the lower level is the surprise for most visitors โ one of the largest holdings of industrial design anywhere, running from Bauhaus chairs and kitchenware to cars, motorcycles and early computers. The main floor holds the art: Picasso, Kirchner, Beckmann, Klee and Max Ernst, then the postwar rooms, Warhol, Beuys and the rest of the twentieth century. Because four institutions share the house, close to half of it is temporary exhibitions that rotate โ check the programme before you come, since what is on show today may not be what a friend saw two months ago. Closed Mondays, one euro on Sundays.
Chairs, cars and early computers downstairs.
Picasso, Klee and Beckmann in successive rooms.
Barer Strasse 40, 80333 Munich
If you love old European painting, take the Alte Pinakothek without hesitating. If your interest is the twentieth century, or design and architecture, this one is more varied and gives you four subjects on one ticket. All three โ Alte, Moderne and Brandhorst โ are a few minutes' walk apart, and the twelve-euro day ticket makes combining them sensible.
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