Alte Pinakothek
The gallery that taught Europe how to build a museum — then filled it with five centuries of Old Masters.
Coming soon on iOS — be first to walk Munich offline.
Opened in 1836, this was briefly the largest museum in the world and became the direct blueprint for the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and galleries in Rome, Brussels, and Kassel. The collection covers the 14th through 18th century — the full sweep of Old Master painting — held in a 150-metre Neo-Renaissance building that was a radical departure from the castle-style museums of its era.
What to look for
- The yellow polished brick exterior — one-metre-thick masonry clad in a warm, distinctive tone unlike anything else on the street
- Skylights built into the cabinet rooms, Leo von Klenze's then-radical solution for lighting paintings with natural overhead light
- The south facade, designed as the grand entrance, yet the actual door sits on the east side of the building
Sits in Munich's Kunstareal alongside the Neue Pinakothek and Pinakothek der Moderne — all three are walkable from each other and share the same Bavarian State Painting Collections organisation.
Alte Pinakothek is one of 37 sights worth the detour in Munich, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Munich pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Munich
- Allianz ArenaThe world's first stadium with a full color-changing exterior — 75,000 seats wrapped in inflated ETFE plastic panels that can change color across the entire facade.
- Deutsches Museum125,000 objects across 50 fields of science and technology — all on a former coal island in the Isar.
- Nymphenburg PalaceAt 632 metres across, this Baroque summer palace is wider than Versailles — and it started as a birth announcement.
- FrauenkircheThe twin towers top out at just over 98 meters — Munich caps the entire city at 99 m, so nothing can overtake them on the skyline.
- Englischer GartenA Massachusetts-born American Loyalist, fleeing Britain after the Revolution, drew up plans for what became one of the world's largest urban parks.
- GlyptothekThe museum a Bavarian king built so he could give Munich its own ancient Athens — using the real thing.