The Hofgarten is a garden in the center of Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

, Germany, located between the Residenz

Residenz, Munich

The Munich Residenz is the former royal palace of the Bavarian monarchs in the center of the city of Munich, Germany...

 and the Englischer Garten

Englischer Garten (Munich)

The Englischer Garten, German for "English Garden", is a large public park in the centre of Munich, Germany, stretching from the city centre to the northeastern city limits...

.

The garden was built in 1613-1617 by Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria

Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria

Maximilian I, Duke/Elector of Bavaria , called "the Great", was a Wittelsbach ruler of Bavaria and a prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire. His reign was marked by the Thirty Years' War ....

 as an Italian style Renaissance

Renaissance

The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

 garden. In the center of the garden is a pavilion

Pavilion (structure)

In architecture a pavilion has two main meanings.-Free-standing structure:Pavilion may refer to a free-standing structure sited a short distance from a main residence, whose architecture makes it an object of pleasure. Large or small, there is usually a connection with relaxation and pleasure in...

 for the goddess Diana

Diana (mythology)

In Roman mythology, Diana was the goddess of the hunt and moon and birthing, being associated with wild animals and woodland, and having the power to talk to and control animals. She was equated with the Greek goddess Artemis, though she had an independent origin in Italy...

, built in 1615 by Heinrich Schön the elder. A path leads from each of the eight arches. On the roof of the Diana pavilion is the replica of a sculpture of Bavaria

Bavaria statue

Bavaria is the name given to a monumental, bronze sand-cast 19th-century statue in Munich, southern Germany. It is a female personification of the Bavarian homeland, and by extension its strength and glory....

 by Hubert Gerhard, created in 1623. The original is in the Kaisersaal of the Residenz.

Facing the Hofgarten on the east side is the Bavarian Staatskanzlei ("State Chancellery"), housed in the former Army Museum, with the addition of glass wings left and right of the original building. The repurposed building was completed in 1993. A few steps more eastwards the Hofgartenkaserne

Hofgartenkaserne

The Hofgartenkaserne, also known as Infanterie-Leibregiment-Kaserne or Max-Joseph-Kaserne, was a military facility of the Bavarian army, located at Hofgarten Strasse 2 in Munich, Germany...

 was located from 1801 to 1899.

In the north east corner, a square black granite memorial stands to the White Rose

White Rose

The White Rose was a non-violent/intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany, consisting of students from the University of Munich and their philosophy professor...

 group, whose members were executed for a non violent campaign against Hitler's regime.
The side towards the Residenz includes flowers in a design by Carl Effner from 1853, and there are arcades

Arcade (architecture)

An arcade is a succession of arches, each counterthrusting the next, supported by columns or piers or a covered walk enclosed by a line of such arches on one or both sides. In warmer or wet climates, exterior arcades provide shelter for pedestrians....

 to the west and the north, including many wall paintings related to the history of Bavaria

History of Bavaria

The history of Bavaria stretches from its earliest settlement and its formation as a stem duchy in the 6th century through its inclusion in the Holy Roman Empires to its status as an independent kingdom and, finally, as a large and significant Bundesland of the modern Federal Republic of...

. The Hofgartentor (1816), the first building in Munich by Leo von Klenze

Leo von Klenze

Leo von Klenze was a German neoclassicist architect, painter and writer...

, leads towards the Theatinerkirche.

The garden was destroyed during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, and was rebuilt with a partial redesign which compromised between the landscape garden

Landscape garden

The term landscape garden is often used to describe the English garden design style characteristic of the eighteenth century, that swept the Continent replacing the formal Renaissance garden and Garden à la française models. The work of Lancelot 'Capability' Brown is particularly influential.The...

 character it had acquired in the nineteenth century and the original formal design of the seventeenth century. Nowadays the garden is open to the public, and is very popular with both residents and tourists alike. The nearest Munich U-Bahn

Munich U-Bahn

The Munich U-Bahn system is an electric rail rapid transit network in Munich, Germany. "U-Bahn" is the German contraction for Untergrundbahn or "subway." It is operated by the municipally owned Münchner Verkehrsgesellschaft...

 station is Odeonsplatz

Odeonsplatz (Munich U-Bahn)

Odeonsplatz is an important U-Bahn interchange station on the northern edge of Munich's Old Town. It is serviced by the U4, U5 and U3, U6 lines of the Munich U-Bahn system, with U 4 and U 5 running in an east-west direction and U3, U6 running perpendicular in a north-south direction...

, located directly west of the garden.

The garden is cited in T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land

The Waste Land

The Waste Land[A] is a 434-line[B] modernist poem by T. S. Eliot published in 1922. It has been called "one of the most important poems of the 20th century." Despite the poem's obscurity—its shifts between satire and prophecy, its abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location and time, its...

.

External links

• Munich Court Garden Information in English by the Bayerische Schlösserverwaltung
• 360° Panorama View of Hofgarten