Around and about the city: Munich’s architecture night.

The good thing about living in a city like Munich is that there is always something going on. If you are sitting home on Saturday evening and you don’t know what to do, in no time you will find a street festival, a new movie to see, a restaurants you want to try out, a concert…
I already wrote that the best way to put little O to sleep is to go for a walk in the pram. It just always works. You can imagine I already toured many kilometers through our neighborhood . While I was doing so, an advertisement caught my attention: “Die lange Nacht der Architektur” (The long night of architecture). While my husband and I have a weakness for good architecture, this was so something for us. I immediately wrote him a text to tell him we are going out next Friday evening and I would arrange the babysit.

No sooner said than done, it was Friday and little O was in the safe hands of our babysitter. We were dressed with warm shoes and a XXL scarf ready to conquer the cold (it’s minus 10 in Munich at the moment) and to have a lovely time.
The concept of the evening was as followed: during one night you are able to visit 70 buildings and fascinating places through the city. There were different routes you can follow by organized busses with the hop-on hop-off principle. Because the offer was huge we decided to go for the buildings in the direct area of our apartment, since it was a perfect occasion to get into buildings which are normally closed for visitors.

Our first stop was the Skygarden in the PWC building at Arnulfpark. This building is from the hand of Jens Bothe, Kai Richter and Hadi Tehera. These three architects are responsible for residential, commercial and office buildings not only in Germany but around the world.The highlight of this building is, as you can already guess, the sky garden at the top floor where you find a green oasis combined with a view on the central station of Munich.

The sky garden

The elevator to get up at the sky garden

The next and already last stop were the headquarters of ADAC. (ADAC stands for “Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil Club” and is Germany’s biggest automobile association.) This huge building consist of a eighteen storey high-rise tower and the construction is quite new, it is build in 2012. In the foyer, the public was hosted by a comfy jazz band playing at an indoor waterfall. Next to it, they arranged a bar with small snacks and drinks. But here as well, the highlight was found in higher regions: the top floor. Using one of the modern lifts, the visitors were allowed to get to the highest floor, a place where the CEO has its office. We entered a big meeting room, where windows were placed from left to right. The view on a clear day must be breathtaking, with sights reaching to the Alps. But also at night, the overview over Munich was very impressive. We could also see the street of our apartment, and were thinking of our little O sleeping in his bed. It was another moment were we noticed that young parents always have their kids in mind.

The view

The Jazz band

The foyer at ADAC

At the end, we really enjoyed our evening together, even if it wasn’t that long after all. We only visited two buildings. But it was the perfect moment to learn about our neighbourhood from another side, and to have some quality time.