Propyläen: A Gate for a King of Greece
Why is it significant?
Walk up to the great gate and stand in the passage beneath it, between the heavy Doric columns, with a squat tower on either side of you. It is a gate that guards nothing: there is no wall, no city boundary, just a lawn behind you and an avenue in front. It was never meant to keep anyone out.
Key Facts
| Place | Propyläen: A Gate for a King of Greece |
|---|---|
| Address | Königsplatz, 80333 München, Germany |
| Geo Coordinates | 48.14610, 11.56430 |
| Part of Walk | Isar-Athens: Munich's Königsplatz, the Pinakotheks & the Blue Rider |
| Generated | Generated |
Walk up to the great gate and stand in the passage beneath it, between the heavy Doric columns, with a squat tower on either side of you. It is a gate that guards nothing: there is no wall, no city boundary, just a lawn behind you and an avenue in front. It was never meant to keep anyone out. It was meant to tell a story.
This is the Propyläen, Leo von Klenze's echo of the monumental entrance to the Acropolis of Athens. It was built between 1854 and 1862, and it was paid for by Ludwig the First out of his own pocket, years after he had given up the throne. Look up at the reliefs in the pediments and the towers: they show scenes from the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire.
Why would a Bavarian king care so much? Because Ludwig was a passionate philhellene, a lover of everything Greek, and he backed the Greek uprising with money and words. And in 1832, when the great powers chose a king for newly independent Greece, they picked his teenage son, Otto. A Bavarian prince on the throne of Athens... for Ludwig it was a dream come true. This gate is his monument to that union.
History, however, has a cruel sense of timing. In 1862, the very year the Propyläen was completed, the Greeks rose against King Otto and sent him into exile. He came home to Bavaria and died in Bamberg a few years later. The triumphant gate was finished just in time to celebrate a reign that was over.
Now turn around and look at the whole square. Klenze and his colleagues gave Königsplatz all three classical orders: the plain Doric columns of this gate, the elegant Ionic columns of the museum on your left, and the leafy Corinthian capitals of the one on your right. It is an open-air lesson in Greek architecture, which is why Munich was nicknamed Isar-Athens. Walk now to the museum on the north side, the one with the Ionic portico.