Munich's new modern design

by Aric Chen

For much of the world, Munich is likely to evoke one or more stereotypical images, among them the Glockenspiel in the tower of the neo-Gothic Rathaus, or city hall; the annual Oktoberfest bacchanal; and mustachioed men wearing lederhosen. Style, a word generally not associated with lederhosen, doesn't spring to mind. But these days Munich, Germany's third-largest city and the capital of Bavaria, is shedding its dirndls and feathered caps in favor of cutting-edge design.

Until my latest visit, I hadn't thought much of the city. I had traveled there twice—once as a backpacking teenager lured by the promise of copious beer, and again about 10 years later—and in my more sober moments Munich seemed a bit of a bore. It was as if the Wittelsbachs were still holed up in the royal palace: the spires of Baroque churches soared above winding streets, throngs followed the pied-piping Glockenspiel to the Marienplatz (the historic main square), and the Odeonsplatz and tony Maximilianstrasse presided with Italianate decorum. Munich was charming, elegant and postcard-perfect—but often as riveting as a boiled Bavarian potato. It was a well-preserved time warp rebuilt after World War II with a hint of self-satisfied, Disneyesque preciousness.

That's no longer the case. "In some ways, Munich has always been a creative city," says Christian Haas, a young local designer, over drinks at Heyluigi, a bustling boîte in the fashionable Glockenbach neighborhood, where a herd of wall-mounted plastic animals is the primary décor. "But it's changed a lot in recent years," he adds.

As Munich celebrates its 850th birthday this year, its historic center remains pleasantly intact—though it's now also home to a new synagogue and a Jewish Museum, designed by German firm Wandel Hoefer Lorch and opened in 2007. They are signs not just of a reinvigorated Jewish community but of a burst of innovation, powered by a strong economy (companies like BMW and Siemens call Munich home) and by the global boom in contemporary design. Driving in from the airport, one sees the evidence immediately: there's the Allianz soccer stadium, an illuminated doughnut completed for the 2006 World Cup by vanguard Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron. Closer to town are the BMW Museum and the glittering new BMW World, a car-delivery center accessorized with restaurants and shops. The swooping glass-and-steel leviathan, designed by Austrian firm Coop Himmelb(l)au, looks like a spaceship touching down.

Even the old center has received a design-driven jump start. Inserted with surgical precision inside a historic city block, Herzog & de Meuron's Fünf Höfe ("five courtyards") complex offers a Kubrickesque take on a 19th-century shopping arcade, its passageways and interior quadrangles distinguished by hanging plants, warped walls and a sculptural sphere by the artist Olafur Eliasson. One night, I met Uli Tredup, a Munich-based interior designer, for dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant called Brenner. The salsiccia was a bit dry, but the scene said it all, as bijoux-laden ladies and Gucci-swathed men navigated the minefield of high-end shopping bags by their chairs. More telling than the conspicuous consumption was the setting of the restaurant itself, which occupies the vaulted cavern of the city's royal stables, now encased within a modern complex built behind a Victorian-era façade. It's an 18th-century relic wrapped in 21st-century glass inside a 19th-century shell—an apt metaphor for the city's hybridization. The new creative energy is welcomed by Tredup, who has designed smart galleries and shops in Munich—including the Nymphenburg porcelain showroom and the Talbot Runhof boutique—as well as a house for Boris Becker.

Locals describe their home, tongue-in-cheek, as Italy's northernmost city. The pace is relaxed, and in summer the beer gardens are packed and the sky is pristine—an ideal habitat for the sun worshipers who stake their ground, full monty, in the R-rated section of the sprawling English Garden. "It's an extremely pleasant city," says Ingo Maurer, 76, the local designer who's legendary for his poetic lighting fixtures. "The feeling is gemütlich [cozy]," he says. Originally from the German side of Lake Constance, Maurer, who lives part-time in New York, settled in Munich four decades ago. With its egg yolk-yellow buildings hemming a quiet courtyard, his compound just off Kaiserstrasse could be described as gemütlich as well. This month, Maurer plans to open his first-ever Munich showroom, where visitors will find his classics—say, an explosive chandelier of shattered china—along with exhibitions, lectures and his latest work.

Munich is also home to designer Konstantin Grcic, renowned for the technological and formal innovations of his space-age products, and furniture maker ClassiCon, which produces several Grcic designs. The haute-modern kitchen manufacturer Bulthaup has its headquarters just outside of town. An emerging generation, including Haas and former Grcic protégés Stefan Diez, Nitzan Cohen and Clemens Weisshaar, are bringing their energy and talent to the city just as surefire, imported names like David Chipperfield and Andrée Putman have contributed interiors for, respectively, the Rena Lange boutique and the historic center's Blue Spa and Restaurant, at the Bayerischer Hof hotel.

The inventive crowd now flocks to a number of newly buzzing establishments. In the historic center they fill the restaurant Schumann's, a standby having a revival, and Saf im Zerwirk, a vegan eatery designed by Cohen. In nearby Glockenbach they savor tagliatelli al ragù at Heyluigi or the all-day breakfast at Café Maria, sip wine at the chilled-out Maroto Bar or the livelier Café King, and browse the tightly edited design bookstore Soda.

Not all is new here in terms of groundbreaking design. Munich was home to the Deutscher Werkbund, the seminal early-20th-century association—a Bauhaus precursor—that sought to integrate crafts with modern industry. Among its members were artists Richard Riemerschmid and Peter Behrens, who would help found the Neue Sammlung museum, which today has the world's largest collection, at around 75,000 objects, of modern and contemporary design. In 2002, the museum left its "provisional" home of nearly 80 years for dramatically expanded quarters in the Pinakothek der Moderne. Among its soaring galleries is one of the most comprehensive design installations I've ever seen, spanning Art Nouveau chairs, the Bauhaus, and mid-20th-century masters, as well as Macintosh computers and Braun appliances.

Nowadays, the city's forward-looking spirit shows up in unexpected ways. Consider the Nymphenburg porcelain manufactory, located in the 17th-century Nymphenburg Palace, its home for more than 250 years. The frilly figurines and Rococo dinner services are still handcrafted using machines powered by water. Swans ripple across the ponds of the palace grounds, where you might spot Franz, the current Duke of Bavaria, walking his dachshund, Wastl. But Nymphenburg's kilns are also producing some of the most notable contemporary designs around: porcelain driftwood candleholders by Ted Muehling, plates by Hella Jongerius that reveal the process of applying decoration, faux-stitched teapots by Grcic. "We want to explore what's possible in porcelain, while creating timeless pieces that have long-term value," Nymphenburg's CEO, Jörg Richtsfeld, tells me.

Munich is remaking itself by engaging its past. Its most radical spaces (think of Fünf Höfe or even Brenner) have emerged from a rich historical fabric, just as Nymphenburg's froufrou porcelain has evolved into pieces now coveted by avant-garde aficionados. The city is wresting innovation from its most entrenched traditions. And that may soon even extend—yes—to lederhosen. "It took me five years of living in Munich before I would even go to Oktoberfest, and 20 years to wear lederhosen there," says the designer Uli Tredup. "But now it's actually sort of cool for the kids to wear traditional clothes."

Home Is Where the Crafts Are

Satisfy two basic New Yorker urges — snooping in other people’s apartments and buying cool stuff — today at the Brooklyn Homeshow. Local designers and crafters from Etsy will gather in an apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn, to show their handmade cards, soaps, jewelry, toys, knits and other wares. Wouldn’t that look better in your place? ;)

Shopping With Design Bloggers - Fall Picks From Those Who’ve Seen It All

Josh Rubin, the editor of the five-year-old blog Cool Hunting, describes the mission of his site as “an aggressive seeking of stuff.” It’s a phrase that could be applied to innumerable design blogs, which have been breeding like mosquitoes since the beginning of the decade. “We are constantly scouring the Web, magazines and television for fresh new ideas and inspiration,” said Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, who runs the four-year-old Apartment Therapy blog; on top of that, his offices are awash in an endless flood of submissions from designers and manufacturers. (And of fans: “People show up all the time,” he said. “A few weeks ago, an organizer from Germany” — an organizer of the clutter-busting variety — “brought us a bag of madeleines.”)

Stephen Drucker, the editor in chief of House Beautiful magazine, calls the best design bloggers “guerrilla editors, constantly taking the temperature of the design world.” Deborah Needleman, his counterpart at Domino, is publishing a blog guide in her November issue, a primer on the styles and sensibilities of various sites. “There are so many of them that you can find one that matches your style and point of view,” she said. “That’s what you want from a blog: a voice and point of view you want to check in with.”

Because design bloggers are expert sifters and seekers, as well as tireless sorters and linkers, spending more time online than is perhaps ocularly prudent, they make the keenest guides to all that is urgent, odd and delightful in the design world at any given moment.

The eyes behind seven sites shared their favorite new things for fall.

Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, 42, New York City

Soothing, prescriptive and communal, four-year-old Apartment Therapy reflects the personality of the man who co-founded and runs it, Maxwell Gillingham-Ryan, a Waldorf school teacher turned design therapist, author, and Internet entrepreneur. It is focused on urban life and is quitely evangelical on topics like slow food, tiny offices, and green homes. It is also huge ― the Apartment Therapy banner waves over four other blogs, like the ecologically minded Re-Nest ― and claims more than 2 million unique visitors monthly. "We believe the home is the most important space any of us have," said Mr. Gillingham-Ryan, who moves among a barn, a yurt and a small Manhattan apartment with his wife, Safa, a food writer, and their daughter, Ursula, age 2. "We support regular folks who want to make it beautiful, organized, and healthy, day in, day out."

$12,500, Jennifer Levin Atocha. "Solves a storage problem and honos the desire to collect."

Tim Yu, 27; Josh Rubin, 34; Ami Kealoha, 30; Evan Orensten, 42; New York

Despite the geekiness of its 90s name, Cool Hunting shows off some pretty cool stuff, like a body-temperature-regulating jacket from Helly Hansen; the faux-naïve paintings of Michael Swaney, a Barcelona-based Canadian; and a "saddle stool" made from an actual saddle by Fernando Akasaka, a Brazilian furniture designer. Josh Rubin, who has been a Web and CD-ROM designer, started the site as a design-source archive for his own use (he used blogging software, he said, because it was well-suited to making an archive). Five years later, Cool Hunting has been redesigned for advertising and, as of Wednesday, has amassed 5,152 entries. Its general theme, said Mr. Rubin, who lives in Chelsea with Mr. Orensten, two dogs and some Jean Prouvé chairs, "is the obsessive-compulsive process." Last month, he added, it had more than 330,000 unique visitors.

$300, Hulger. "Natural materials used for cutting-edge technology."

Grace Bonney, 27, Williamsburg, Brooklyn

Design Sponge is the indie girl band of the design blogosphere. Devoted to crafty, handmade things like felted sculptures, letterpress stationery and hand-drawn wallpapers, it has a girly sensibility with an edge, and a particular interest in the work of independent designers working in its creator's neighborhood. Maintaining the blog is the full-time job of Grace Bonney, who is also a contributing editor at Domino and Craft magazines. There are contests, podcasts, and design guides to cities beyond New York, like Portland, Me., all sweetly laid out on an endless linen runner with a lacy border, giving the site the feeling of a Martha Stewart Living for millennials ― 30,000 of them each day, Ms. Bonney said.

About $16 a yard, Alan the Gallant. "A welcome change from all of the damask."

$1,400, Paul Loebach. "A great way to play around with bright shades without taking a huge risk."

$12 to $52, Up in the Air Somewhere. "Feels beautiful and solid, not thin and precious."

Hollister Hovey, 29, Brooklyn

Ms. Hovey's aesthetic is an eccentric version of decaying WASP-y, Teddy Roosevelt by way of John Derian. (Ms. Hovey's apartment, she said, "may be the least PETA-friendly home in Brooklyn," because she has embellished it with a herd of vintage animal heads ― a sheep, a springbok, an antelope, and more ― and a zebra skin rug.) The blog's mandate, she said, "is to help the classices have a place in the cyber-world filled with ubiquitousmodern design. "Diaristic and appealingly personal, recent posts include photos of old stock certificates, thoughts on the Ralph Lauren fashion show, and a "yard sale" at Chatsworth. The blog receives about 500 visitors a day, Ms. Hovey said, with 84 subscribed to her newsfeed, a number that includes her father. "He seems to think that I'm e-mailing these all to him directly," said Ms. Hovey, "like little missives about my life. He responds accordingly, 'Thanks for the update. Love, Dad.'"

$750, Coleen & Company. "Can't all indoor furniture go outside?"

$1,800, Darr. "Looks like Thomas Edison may have fiddled with it."

Harry Wakefield, 47, Montreal

More like a traditional magazine than a blog, MoCo Loco (MoCo is short for modern and contemporary) is slick and adult, and focused squarely on modern architecture design and art, a Dwell-ish site of pre-fab housing and high-design objects from around the world. Now five years old, it has 28,000 subscribers to its daily news feed, said Harry Wakefield, its editor and creator, and gets up to a million pages views a month. "In 2003 I couldn't find a design blog I wanted to read, so I started one," said Mr. Wakefield, who has worked in magazines and advertising. "I live in a tiny house with my wife and two people I affectionately call 'the destroyers,'" he said, "which is why most of my favorite MoCo objects are on the blog, not at home."

$429, Designfenzider. Focuses the eye on "the mystery and beauty of the flame."

$350, CGF Group Design Italia. "The essence of the cuckoo."

$1,200, Sherwood Forlee. "Functional architecture for our night table."

Jennifer Boles Dwyer, 36, Atlanta

Jennifer Boles Dwyer is an admirer of Charlotte Moss, Sybil Connolly and Parish-Hadley, and a booster for classic English decorating and its effluence: demilune tables, good lighting, books by Bunny Williams, Brunschwig fabrics. Here is a personal blog ― in other words, no advertising ― with about 2,000 daily subscribers, she said, and 1,500 additional "readers." (One of them, Stephen Drucker, the editor of House Beautiful, hired her as a contributing editor.) Ms. Dwyer, who has been helping run the family business (which makes printing presses), turned to the blog as an outlet for her interest in design history. "My goal," she said, "is to encourage people to look to the past while embracing the new and modern. You can find a lot of inspiration in the past. It's how you present it that makes it new."

$1,300, Currey & Company. "The classic waterfall shape and rich parchment finish make this work in contemporary and more traditional homes. And it costs a lot less than an original Jean-Michel Frank."

Stephanie Murg, 28, New York City and Steve Delahoyde, 29, Chicago

According to its founding editor, Jen Bekman, UnBeige was named in honor of the late graphic designer Tibor Kalman, who dismissed off-white and beige as the color choces of those afraid to offend. "By definition," Kalman once said, "when you make something no one hates, no one loves it." Part of the Mediabistro group of blogs, the three-year-old UnBeige is on its fourth and fifth editors, Steve Delahoyde and Stephanie Murg. They were hired, Ms. Murg said, because of their interest in what she described as "imperfections, quirkiness, insanity, unpredictability."

The blog is an arch, pop culture-oriented Web magazine, a Gawker for those who are as comfortable discussing Charles Gwathmey's addition to the Art and Architecture Building at Yale as they are deconstructing Metallica album covers.

$129, CB2. "Shattering reflections into multiple views, for the lazy Cubist."

$9,900, EcoSmart Inc.. "The design world loves a good juxtaposition."

$4,000 to $5,800, Kayiwa. "A Museum of Natural History meets the Container Store aesthetic."