Munich–January 24, 2017
Today I went to the Pinakothek der Moderne, passing these on the way there:
This museum houses four separate galleries. One of them is design, where they had a large collectio non the wall, plus a “wall of cars”:
They also have vintage computers, and knowing that the Apple //c, whose in-box software I worked on when at Apple, is a museum piece makes me feel really old. (It’s on the right in the first picture.)
Here are other items, in no particular order:
These two pictures are of a “pop-up house” with levels that move as you watch them (See the video):
These were all in the basement, and about when I had gotten through it, the power went out in part of the museum. I took the opportunity to go to the Museum Brandhorst, pictured here:
They do not allow photos inside, “for liability reasons.” Being snarky here, they are probably afraid of getting sued by people getting violently ill looking at the photos of the artwork. They had a large exhibit of art by a fellow named Cy Twombly, of which only the “Roses” series appealed to me at all. I had luckily purchased a day ticket for the museums, so all told the price to get in the Brandhorst was only 2 €, but not worth it, if you ask me.
Kingdom of Crystals
On the way back to the Pinakothek, I saw a sign for the Museum Reich der Kristalle (Kingdom of Crystals). They didn’t open until 1 p.m., but they are part of a university and they had a lot of display cases outside the museum. I came back later when the museum was open; the admission price was 4€, and you don’t see too much extra things, but the money goes to help them acquire new mineral samples. I thought it was a better use of money than the Brandhorst. I have combined the pictures from both visits:
One thing outside the museum was the Münchner Kugel (The Munich Sphere). Here, loosely translated, is its story:
The place directly in front of our museum has a long history. Until the end of WWII it was the Prince Arnulf Barracks, better known as the Turkish barracks. After the war, the walls of the barracks were torn down, but a small part of the tower on Türkenstrasse, the current Türkentor (Turkish tower), was left standing. Everything else disappeared except one artifact: The Munich Sphere, a large granite ball that once adorned a pillar.
It had slept, like Sleeping Beauty, for a long time in the meadow in front of the location of the current Mineralogical collection before being rescued by the then master carpenter of the collection, Josef Stockbauer.
Here are pictures of the afternoon trip, in the museum. The first picture is the King Ludwig Diamond:
Pinakothek der Moderne (part 2)
OK, back to the other museum to pick up on the rest of their galleries, with these pictures, the first of which is a view upward to the ceiling:
These next few are interesting: the artist gave 500 Japanese factory workers a candy bar wrapped in aluminum foil. After they finished eating the candy, they were asked to sculpt the foil into any shape they liked. Here are some of the results:
They had a room with some Picassos:
The museum also has a lot of works by Andy Warhol; here is one of them:
The following painting is one that would normally make me say, “You call this crap art?”, but the thought entered my head that perhaps I should take an art history/appreciation course and find out why this is considered good art worthy of being in a museum.
Francis Kéré, an architect from Burkina Faso, had his work on display in Radically Simple:
Marienplatz
From the museum, I walked to the Marienplatz, which is probably the single most over-photographed place in all the city:
Close to Marienplatz is the Viktualienmarkt. It wasn’t tremendously busy, given how cold it was. There are statues of famous performers from Munich throughout the area:
And these pictures on the way back to the hotel:
Signage
Here is a clever way to put an umlaut over a capital A.
A good logo for the HFF (University for TV and Film Munich).
This was a poster inside the HFF building.
Because cute.
A closeup of the map showing where the museums are. Notice the arrows that point out where the entrances are. That is really clever design.
Seen on another map sign. Good advice!
Hotel Sign
Text reads: Fantasy is more important than knowing, because knowing is limited.