Monopteros: Klenze's Temple on a Man-Made Hill
Why is it significant?
Climb the last few steps of the hill, walk in among the slender columns, and turn to face south-west. There it is: the skyline of old Munich, the twin towers of the Frauenkirche with their onion domes, church spires and green copper roofs, all framed by the trees of the park.
Key Facts
| Place | Monopteros: Klenze's Temple on a Man-Made Hill |
|---|---|
| Address | Englischer Garten, 80538 München, Germany |
| Geo Coordinates | 48.14990, 11.59090 |
| Part of Walk | River and Meadow: Munich's Isar, the Angel of Peace & the English Garden |
| Generated | Generated |
Climb the last few steps of the hill, walk in among the slender columns, and turn to face south-west. There it is: the skyline of old Munich, the twin towers of the Frauenkirche with their onion domes, church spires and green copper roofs, all framed by the trees of the park. This is the postcard view, and it was designed to be exactly that.
The Monopteros is a small round temple of Ionic columns, built between 1832 and 1836 by Leo von Klenze for King Ludwig the First, the same pair who gave Munich its Greek museums. The name is Greek for a round temple with a single ring of columns and no walls. It was placed on top of an artificial hill, which means that you are standing on a landscape that someone made by hand.
That is the whole philosophy of the English Garden in one spot. The meadow, the hill, the temple, the view: all of it is arranged like a painting, so that a stroll becomes a series of pictures. Sckell called this kind of view a framed scene, and he planted the trees so that the city's towers would appear just where the eye wants to rest.
The temple has had many lives. In the 1960s and 1970s it became a gathering place for hippies, with guitars and long nights under the columns, and the police and the park administration were not always amused. Today it is a meeting point for sunset watchers, teenagers and tired tourists, and on summer evenings the steps are packed.
Put your hand on one of the columns and look down at the grass sloping away on every side. Nobody built a monument to the hill itself, which may be the most hard-working thing here. Now walk down the north side of the hill and follow the path north, past the meadows and towards a small white house near the famous wooden tower.