Königsplatz, the Athens of Ludwig I

Stand on the lawn, facing the great columned gateway. You are inside Ludwig I’s dream: a Greek square in the heart of Bavaria. Each building uses one of the classical orders, like an open-air lesson in architecture.

1Three temples for a king

To the north is Leo von Klenze’s Glyptothek (1816–1830), built for the king’s collection of ancient sculpture, with Ionic columns. To the south stands Georg Friedrich Ziebland’s building (1838–1845), with Corinthian columns, home since 1967 to the State Collections of Antiquities. To the west rise Klenze’s Propyläen (1848–1862), in the Doric order, a tribute to the Greek War of Independence. Ludwig I had personal reasons: his son Otto had been proclaimed King of Greece in 1832. In one of history’s ironies, Otto was overthrown in 1862, the very year the gateway was finished.

2The parade ground

On 10 May 1933, Nazi students burned books on this square. Soon afterwards the regime renamed it “Königlicher Platz”, ripped up the lawn and covered it with some 20,000 granite slabs for its rallies. At the eastern end it built two “temples of honour” holding the sarcophagi of the sixteen putschists killed in 1923. Locals nicknamed it the “Plattensee”, the lake of slabs, because rainwater would not drain away.

The temples were blown up on 16 January 1947; all that remains are two plinths overgrown with greenery.

The slabs were not removed until 1987–1988, when the square regained its 19th-century appearance. Since 2021, in front of the Antikensammlung, Arnold Dreyblatt’s memorial “Die Schwarze Liste” has recalled the book burning with the names of banned authors.

3What to look for

• The pediments and reliefs of the Propyläen, with scenes from the Greek War of Independence.
• The green-covered plinths on either side of Brienner Straße, east of the square.
• The book-burning memorial on the gravel forecourt in front of the Antikensammlung.