Odeonsplatz

Odeonsplatz is Munich's most imposing Italianate ensemble, conceived under King Ludwig I as a deliberate echo of Florence's Loggia dei Lanzi. Leo von Klenze designed the Feldherrnhalle — the colonnaded loggia closing the northern end of Ludwigstrasse — while the yellow Baroque facade of the Theatinerkirche frames the western side. The square carries a dark historical charge: on November 9, 1923, Adolf Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch collapsed here in a volley of gunfire that killed sixteen Nazis and four police officers; under the Third Reich, the Feldherrnhalle was turned into a compulsory Nazi memorial, forcing passersby to give the Hitler salute or detour through a back alley. Today the plaza serves as the gateway to the Hofgarten and a natural crossroads between the Altstadt and the Maximilianstrasse quarter, busy with street musicians and commuters passing beneath the same archways that once carried such outsized political weight.

Feldherrnhalle, Hofgarten and Theatinerkirche frame the square — Munich's most Italian gesture, laid out from 1816.