When looking for a great travel adventure in Bavaria’s beautiful cities, checking out the museums in Munich aside is among the best things to do in Bavaria, Germany, aside from only anticipating the town’s festive celebration of Oktoberfest where many mus full of beer is clinking and raised in the air.
Munich is a lovely town in the diverse and vibrant region of Bavaria. It’s a city home to numerous spectacular museums holding precious artifacts, memories, and fascinating cultures of Munich, and Bavaria, Germany.
Visiting museums provides a fun and indoor educational adventure to experience in Munich. Each of the galleries in town presents distinct displays that are not to be overlooked, galleries that offer the opportunity to experience a memorable trip in Munich.
Best Museums in Munich, Germany
Deutsches Museum
Address: Museumsinsel 1, 80538 München, Germany
The Deutsches Museum is a museum dedicated to artifacts highlighting science and technology and advances over the years in both fields. The museum is the largest museum dedicated to science and technology in the whole world.
Every year, it receives over 1.5 million visitors, has over 50 different themed exhibitions, and has over 28,000 items on exhibition. The Deutsches Museum is Germany’s biggest museum, and it has had an interesting history, being used at one time to host concerts by rock and pop musicians like Jimi Hendrix and Elton John.
The range of thematic exhibitions at the museum is quite wide. Popular niches like Aerospace, Astronomy, Computer Science, and Environment are fully displayed. Some exhibitions are themed with less popular science branches like Geodesy, Glass, and Chronometry.
The museum is also dedicated to researching the history of science and technology and its impact on culture and modern life. To achieve its research aims, the museum partners with several other organizations, including the universities located in Munich. Both organizations share mutual benefits, with resources for research going both ways.
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Egyptian Museum Munich
Address: Gabelsbergerstraße 35, 80333 München, Germany
The Egyptian Museum Munich is an archaeological museum located, and it is also known as Staattliches Museum Agyuptischer Kunst, which translated to English literarily means State Museum of Egyptian Art.
The museum’s focus is to display Bavaria state’s collection of ancient Egyptian art in exhibits of pre-dynastic and dynastic eras. Some of these ancient Egyptian artifacts come in statues, sculptures, jewelry, amulets, cult articles, stone tablets with hieroglyphics, glassware, papyri, textiles, mummies, household goods, etc.
In the museum’s permanent exhibition are about eight thousand items. There are the famous statues of pharaoh Nyuserre Ini as a youth and an older man, standing tall. There equally are false doors of the chamber of Menes on display.
The following pharaohs also are represented in statues exhibited in the museum: Amenemhat II, Ramses II, Thutmose III, and Akhenaten, the sarcophagus lid of Queen Sitdjehuti, the sphinx of Sesostris III, etc. Nubian Queen Amanishakheto’s precious jewelry is also on display in the museum, and also a lion tile originating from the Ishtar Gate of Babylon stands on the museum’s wall.
The museum, for many years, was located in the Munich Residenz but was moved in 2013 to be integrated among the museums in Kunstareal.
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BMW Museum
Address: Am Olympiapark 2, 80809 München, Germany
The BMW automobile museum was built in 1973, very close to the Olympiapark of Munich, Germany. The idea of the BMW museum is to display the company’s technical advancements in exhibits.
Such exhibits in the museum include actual and futuristic models of engines, aircraft, motorcycles, turbines, and vehicles of different designs the company has either constructed already or hopes to construct in the future.
Prof. Karl Schwanzer was the architect who designed the complex, eminent building of the museum. The building is shaped to resemble a race car’s engine, appearing circular externally and having the beautiful face of the BMW logo as a roof.
The building is so intricately crafted. In the basement of the building is a cloakroom. On the upper floor of the museum, there is a cinema hall (a small one) and other exhibits that throw light on the company’s technology.
There are a total of one hundred and twenty exhibits housed in the museum. A trip to the museum is one step to experiencing the power of tech, to learn modern and old technology regarding automobiles first-hand.
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Bavarian National Museum
Address: Prinzregentenstraße 3, 80538 München, Germany
The Bavarian National Museum, known in German as Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, is a decorative art and is one of Europe’s most important museums of decorative arts since King Maximilian II of Bavaria founded the museum in the year 1855.
The museum is home to many European artifacts from late antiquity until now. The building was built in historicism based on Gabriel von Seidl’s architectural design. As of today, the building consists of three exhibition halls on separate floors.
The National Museum has other daughter museums spread across the Bavaria State. The Bavarian State Archaeological Collection from ages long (Paleolithic, Celtic civilization, and Roman periods, particularly) is housed in a new building erected behind the fascinating museum.
Decorative arts in the museum include The Gothic Madonna from Seeon Abbey, Medieval Knight’s Armour, etc. The museum’s collections are carved ivory, textiles, glass paintings, shrines, and tapestries.
Also, most were created by notable artists: Erasmus Grasser, Hans Multscher, Adam Krafft, Ferdinand Tietz, Massimiliano Soldani Benzi, and many more. The museum has a folklore collection, where traditional Bavarian pottery, furniture, ceramics, etc., are displayed.
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Deutsches Museum Flugwerft Schleissheim
Address: Effnerstraße 18, 85764 Oberschleißheim, Germany
The Deutsches Museum Flugwerft Schleissheim is a museum dedicated to displaying aviation exhibits. It is situated in Effnerstraße 18, 85764 Oberschleißheim, Germany. It is a member of the museums in the Deutsche Museum collection. The museum was founded in the year 1992.
Its collections include various airspace vehicles such as helicopters, fixed-wing aircraft, aircraft engines, etc. The museum’s collections are grouped into:
- Piston engined aircrafts: This includes Antonov An-2, Arco ultralight, Brunswick LF-1 Zaunkönig, Bücker Bü 181 Bestmann, Cessna 195, Douglas C-47D, LET Z-37A Čmelák, Pützer Motorraab, and Müller DDMH 22.
- Cold War jet aircrafts: This includes Canadair CL-13 B Sabre Mk.6, Lockheed F-104F Starfighter, McDonnell Douglas F-4E Phantom II, and Panavia Tornado IDS.
- VTOL aircraft: Include Dornier Do 31 E-3, VFW-Fokker VAK 191B, and Dornier Aerodyne E1.
- Hang gliders: This which includes Flight Design Exxtacy, Huber Alpengleiter, Laser 12.8, Lilienthal glider, Pelzner hang glider, and the Super Gryphon.
BMW products are also on exhibition in the museum. While the restoration of certain aircraft is ongoing, visitors can view this process in a display hangar.
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Museum Brandhorst
Address: Theresienstraße 35a, 80333 München, Germany
The Museum Brandhorst is a modern art museum situated in Munchen, Germany. Exactly, the museum stands in Theresienstraße 35a, 80333 München, Germany. It was established in the year 2009, 21st of May, precisely. The museum’s focus is on displaying modern art.
About 200 of these exhibits (modern art exhibits) by the Henkel Trust Udo Fritz-Hermann and Anerre Brandhorst are on display in the museum.
In total, there are over seven hundred exhibits on display in the museum. What would soon become a museum started in 1971, when Anette Brandhorst and her husband, Udo Fritz Hermann, started collecting art.
Unfortunately, Anette died in 1999 of a cancerous infection. Udo, her husband, decided to donate their collections to the remarkable Bavaria State on the condition that the state would provide a home to the exhibits. The Sauerbruch Hutton architectural firm designed the museum’s structure.
In addition to the couple’s collections, the museum today preserves other art collections of Andy Warhol, sixty of Cy Twombly’s arts, and other works from other artists.
There’s a special room in the museum specifically housing the 12 collections of the Lepanto cycle painting. Kasimir Malevich’s, Joan Miro’s, and Kurt Schwitters’s collections are equally on display.
One hundred and twelve of Pablo Picasso’s illustration books are also on display, given that Udo and Anette were also lovers of literature as they were of fine arts.
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Museum Five Continents
Address: Maximilianstraße 42, 80538 München, Germany
The Museum Five Continents, also known as Five Continents Museum and in German as Museum Fünf Kontinente, is an ethnographic museum that displays non-European artworks. Museum Five Continents was formerly referred to as the Bavarian State Museum of Ethnology or, in German: Staatliches Museum für Völkerkunde until 2014, when it acquired a new name.
The museum was set up in 1868, and its recent director is Uta Werlich. Such non-European exhibits on display in the museum come from Africa, North America, South America, South Asia, and East Asia.
These are five continents, hence the name Museum Five Continents. The museum tries its best to exhibit the cultural heritage of members of these listed continents. African collections in the museum are majorly plastic art with masks and figures from all parts of Africa.
One could find, for example, the Nduda statue of the 19th century from Yombe. North American collections display masks from the Northwest Coast Indians, and South America displays ceramics, gold, silver, etc.
For South Asia, colorful Indian deities are on display, and East Asia has works from China, Japan, and Indonesia on display. Principally, items on display in the museum are too numerous to mention here.
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Deutsches Museum Verkehrszentrum
Address: Am Bavariapark 5, 80339 München, Germany
The Deutsches Museum, officially known in German as Deutsches Museum von Meisterwerken der Naturwissenschaft und Technik and in English, as the German Museum of Masterpieces of Science and Technology, is located in Munich, Germany, happens to be the biggest of its kind in the entire world.
An estimated twenty-eight thousand science and technology exhibits are on display in the museum, emanating from fifty different science and technology fields. The Deutsches Museum Verkehrzentrum is exactly situated in Am Bavariapark 5, 80339 München, Germany.
Annually, the museum boasts of welcoming around 1.5 million visitors and tourists. The museum was a product of Oskar von Miller’s initiative or ideas discussed at the Association of German Engineers (VDI). The museum opened in the year 1903 on the 28th of June.
Asides from being the largest museum of science and technology in the entire world, it also happens to be Munich’s biggest museum of all types put together. Initially, the museum usually held pop and rock concerts, including performances from artists such as The Who, Jimi Hendrix, and Elton John.
The museum’s permanent exhibition is divided into three themes varying on the three halls they are located in: Urban Transport, Travel, Mobility, and Technology.
Some exhibits on display in the museum include huge steam locomotives standing at specially built stations. Also are car models such as Benz’s first car, BMW motorcycle, and Messerschmitt’s cabin scooter.
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Kunstareal
Address: Gabelsbergerstraße 39, 80333 München, Germany
The Kunstareal, translated simply in English to mean “art district,” is one of the most important cultural hubs in Europe. Kunstareal occupies a space of 500 x 500 meters.
The museum has lived for over two centuries and currently presents visitors with a long-aged history as five thousand years earlier. In the Kunstareal vicinity, there are eighteen museums and exhibition halls, up to six international colleges, more than forty galleries, and cultural institutions (too numerous to mention).
Wandering the streets of Kunstareal leave the visitors with an ‘o’ shaped expression, given the numerous attractive ancient exhibits on display. Some of these attractions include the popular Bayerische Staatsgemaldesammlungen with Alte Pinakothek, Puinakothek der Moderne, Neue Pinkothek, and Late Middel Ages art collections.
Also, the Glyptothek, the Akademie der Bildenden Kunste of Munich, the Staatlisches Museum fur Agyptische Kunst building, and more. Building around this area is quite an architectural thrill, a wow to visitors. The quarter has museums targeted at preserving history and items of history.
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Lenbachhaus
Address: Luisenstraße 33, 80333 München, Germany
Lenbachhaus’s collections begin with exhibits representing the 19th century, the Blue Rider art, and the New Objectivity. Lenbachhaus is among the best destinations and museums to check out in town.
The museum’s collections are interrelated or coordinated with one another. The idea is to have the collections complement each other. Lenbachhaus’ real initiative is to relate one art form to the other, regroup severally, and have them presented in several ways.
The museum’s gallery is in Franz von Lenhach’s (1836-1904) residence. After Franz von Lenhach’s widow, Lolo von Lenbach had his property sold out in 1924. His works were let out on donations.
The city of Munish purchased the property and began plans of fulfilling the long dream of constructing a museum that would be devoted to the nineteenth-century Munich School up to the present day. Art collections on display after the museum’s construction were obtained/purchased from local artists and their descendants.
Considering that space was just not enough to house the intended museum, architect Hands Grassel was hired to incorporate the studio and residential area of Lenbach’s house into the museum building, which gave it a three-wing structure.
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Munich Stadtmuseum
Address: Sankt-Jakobs-Platz 1, 80331 München, Germany
The Munich Stadtmuseum, known in German as Münchner Stadtmuseum and in English as Munich City Museum, is an exhibition center in Munich. It was established in the year 1888 by Ernst von Destouches.
The museum’s building is an old one designed in the Gothic style; it used to be used as the municipal arsenal and stables. The museum used to be known as Museum von Meisterwerken der Naturwissenschaft und Technik, which means Museum of Masterpieces of Science and Technology in English.
The museum site consists of two widely spaced interior courtyards surrounded by four sides by four unusually varied buildings. The oldest of these buildings surrounding the Munich Stadtmuseum was constructed in the 1500s.
The Munich City Museum happens to be the largest of Germany’s municipal museums. Gustav Gsaenger, around the late 1950s, constructed the exhibition extension. This hall building is quite long and big. The worth of items displayed in this museum is so magnified and can rarely be understated.
The museum opens Tuesdays to Sundays from 10 am-6 pm for visitors. It never opens to visitors on Mondays. Every second Wednesday of every month, however, the museum opens until 8 pm for special exhibitions. The museum equally has a new online collection platform, where exhibits can be viewed online.
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Glyptothek
Address: Königsplatz 3, 80333 München, Germany
The Glyptothek is a museum located in Munich, Germany. The Bavarian King Ludwig I commissioned the museum to be home to his Greek and Roman sculpture collections in the early 1830s. His imagery was one of the “German Athens” kinds, where ancient Greek culture would be preserved.
The museum is rightly located in Königsplatz 3, 80333 München, Germany. It was a product of Karl von Fischer’s and Leo von Klenze’s architectural design around 1815. Designed in the neoclassical (Classical Greek – Italian style) style, the historical museum was built from 1816 to 1830.
Colorful frescoes and stuccos crafted by artists of Peter von Cornelius, Wilhelm von Kaulbach, and Clemens von Zimmermann decorate the museum’s walls. World War Two had few impacts on the building’s structure except for the frescoes on the walls, which were no longer there.
So, when the museum reopened in 1972, those initial frescoes were not in view. The museum is one of the 50 museums in the Kunstareal Museum Center. Collections in Gluptothek include sculptures of the archaic ages to the Roman era, mosaics, reliefs, etc.
Some examples of these sculptures include Barberini Faun (220 BC), the Statue of Diomedes (430 BC), and a portrait of Plato (348 BC), too numerous to mention.
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NS-Dokumentationszentrum München
Address: Max-Mannheimer-Platz 1, 80333 München, Germany
The NS-Dokumentationszentrum Munchen focuses on preserving the Nazi’s regime history and consequences, including Munich’s role as the capital of the movement (Hauptstadt der Bewegung).
The NS-Dokumentationszentrum München was opened to the public in the year 2015. Ten years earlier, in 2005, the Bavaria government had declared the museum’s location—the site of the headquarters of the Nazi Party. It was in 2012 that the foundation that would become the museum’s building was laid.
Winfried Nerdinger (de), whose contribution to the museum’s establishment was boldly stated, served as director of the museum from the start year in 2012 to 2017 when Mirjam Zadoff (Innsbruck born historian and professor of Jewish Studies) was announced to take over from him.
Mirjam Zadoff, who took over the museum in 2017, is a Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich doctorate holder. For the 2017/2018 academic session, the professor and historian, Mirjam Zadoff, still served as the undergraduate program director in Jewish Studies at Indianan University, Bloomington.
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Museum of Urban and Contemporary Art
Address: Hotterstraße 12, 80331 München, Germany
The Museum of Urban and Contemporary Art (MUCA for short) was founded in 2016 by Christian and Stephanie Utz. The focus of the Museum of Urban and Contemporary Art, as the name signifies, is gathering exhibits and collections that display urban art. It does this on two thousand square meters of land space.
Artists whose works are on display in the museum include OSGEMOS, Zeus, Shepard Fairey, David Choe, Banksy, etc. Stourhead designed the front side of the building housing the museum. In 2019, the museum was listed among the top ten galleries to visit in Germany, which is a plus to how well the museum is doing for itself.
The museum usually holds expert and artist discussions, tours, workshops, and readings, where exhibitions are explained from their very origin. For a year, the museum normally welcomes more than one hundred thousand visitors.
Some exhibits on display in the museum include The Art of Writing, Bunte, Streetpoly I and II, Kunstlabor 13, Women in Street Art, Swoon, Urban Gine Art II, with 20 artworks of Banksy, etc. The founder’s idea was to raise street art to a certain height, for it is the modern art form, in his words.
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Staatliche Antikensammlungen
Address: Königsplatz 1, 80333 München, Germany
The Staatliche Antikensammlungen, translated in English to mean the State Collections of Antiquities, is an art museum that preserves Bavaria’s collections of antiquities from Greece, Etruria, and Rome.
The museum was founded in 1848 by the Bavarian King Ludwig I, with Florian Knauß as its current director and the State of Bavaria as its current owner. The building is designed in the neo-classical style with Corinthian columns.
Architect Georg Friedrich Ziebland designed the Staatliche Antikensammlungen. From the year 1869 to the year 1872, the building served as home to the royal antiquarian, and from the year 1898 to 1912, the Munich Secession occupied it. In 1919, it was occupied by the New State Gallery.
The Second World War met the building with severe destruction, which left the building in very bad shape, destroying most notably the Etruscan pottery preserved in the Neue Pinakothek. In 1960, however, the building was reopened after properly being reconstructed.
Upon its new opening, it served to showcase the State Collection of Antiques exhibits. Collections on display in the museum include the Dionysus Cup by Exekias (circa 530 BC), the Golden Garland of Armento, etc.
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Villa Stuck
Address: Prinzregentenstraße 60, 81675 München, Germany
The Villa Stuck is a museum located in the Munich quarter of Prinzregentenstrabe. The museum’s structure was built in 1898. In 1992, the museum shifted into the historic building and began to house its items there.
The building housing the museum is devoted to Franz Stuck’s life and works. Franz Stuck was the basis through which the museum found a name, which is to say that since the museum was dedicated to him, it was best to have it named after him, hence the Stuck.
Franz Stuck, in his time, was a very gifted painter. The interior of the building is decorated in the striking Art Deco or Art Nouveau style of the artist himself, Franz Stuck. Franz Stuck was trained at the Munich Academy and is best known for his painting “Sin.”
He had helped groom some students such as Paul Klee, Josef Albers, etc. He was married to Mary Lindpainter. The building proclaims the artist’s creative prowess.
The building’s furnishing was all top notches and had earned Stuck special awards and recognitions. Today, the museum combines life, architecture, theater, music, and art to excite visitors.
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German Hunting and Fishing Museum
Address: Neuhauser Str. 2, 80331 München, Germany
This museum is located in the city of Munich. It is a rare and beautiful building. It was part of the Old Augustinian Monastery and had an area of about 3,000 square meters. German Hunting and Fishing Museum is among the best spots no to miss in town.
The Building is a preservation of the hunting culture, which was prevalent in 1900. There was a demand for a Hunting Museum; the first museum was finally established in 1934 and was called the Imperial Hunting Museum (Reichsjagdmuseum).
Most of the artifacts of this museum were saved in the Schloßgut Ast near Landshut in Bavaria during World War II. Most of the other objects not secured here were lost due to looting. Considerations about the structure of the wall of the (Reichsjagdmuseum) were made after the Second World War.
The Museum was later renamed the German Hunting and Fishing Museum (Deutsches Jagd- und Fischereimuseum) in 1982. This was due to the increasing interest in fishing.
Exhibits in the museum include about 500 wild stuffed animals, which include a cave bear, an Irish elk, and several other endemic freshwater fish.
Some collections include fishing tackle, hunting weapons, and huge sleds, indicating a distant fishing era. One would also find displayed in the museum several Wolpertinger creatures and several Bavarian fictional animals.
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Marstallmuseum
Address: Schloß Nymphenburg 208, 80638 München, Germany
The Marsttallmuseum remains one of the best museums in Munich to display court carriages in the world. It is situated on the South Wing of Nymphenburg Palace.
There is a vehicle park from the Bavarian era on display. The collection in the museum provides a detailed overview of the development of carriages from the end of the 17th century to the end of the 19th century. There are several exhibits from the 17th century to the 19th century from countries like Germany, England, and France.
Displayed in the museum are royal coaches, sleds, barouches, litter as well a carousel. One would find the splendid chariot of Elector Charles Albert (1726-1745), which was used during the occasion of his coronation as Holy Roman Emperor in 1742. There we also find the two coronation carriages of King Maximilian I Joseph (1799-1825).
The five carriages and sleds built for King Ludwig II (1864-1886) were added in 1886, right after his death. There is also a portrait gallery of horses by painter Friedrich Wilhelm Pfeiffer. Another display is the coaches from the time of Prince Regent Luitpold (1866-1912).
Also displayed since 2012, are the Hercules sled of the Bavarian Elector Max Emanuel (1679-1726) and the litter of his first consort. The Austrian princess, Maria Antonia, is also displayed there.
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Beer and Oktoberfest Museum
Address: Sterneckerstraße 2, 80331 München, Germany
People interested in understanding German beer’s history and progression would find visiting the Beer and Oktoberfest Museum (German: Bier- und Oktoberfestmuseum) quite fascinating. It is located in Munich and focuses on the history of beer and the Munich Oktoberfest.
The museum was officially opened on 7 September 2005 and is housed in an old townhouse from 1327. The building can be accessed through a staircase, which is roughly 500 years old. It has 43 steps and extends over more than four floors.
The spectacular thing about this beer is that all things beer and Oktoberfest are displayed inside an ancient house. The view and environment are just so cool and calming.
The museum has a tasting room open for the public right on the ground floor. There is a lot of info and artifacts discussing beer history and the current beer guild in Munich at the museum. It is just amazing to look at and ponder on. The building is also stylishly built to attract and excite.
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Haus der Kunst
Address: Prinzregentenstraße 1, 80538 München, Germany
The museum is located at the southern edge of Englischer Garten, Munich’s largest park. The Haus der Kunst is a non-collecting modern and contemporary art museum. Several artists, such as Anatsui, Cyrill Lachauer, and Michael Armitage.
The rooms in the museum are very high and display fascinating works of art. It is one of the largest international exhibition venues: The Haus der Kunst in Munich shows retrospectives by modern and contemporary artists and themed exhibitions.
The Haus der Kunst displays several perspectives by both modern and contemporary artists and various themed exhibitions. The Haus der Kunst also offers a good program for small and medium-sized art lovers: children and young people learn under the supervision of art teachers and artists and can express themselves creatively.
There are also workshops for children who are disabled. The museum also organizes holiday programs and film courses detailing editing and lighting. Some creative persons also celebrate their birthdays in the museum.
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