Palais Moy: A Neoclassical Aristocratic Palace in Munich
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.6
- Popularity
- Very High
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- German
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Elite Residence
On this page7 sections
History
Munich’s northern expansion
Palais Moy is a neoclassical aristocratic palace in Munich, Germany, built in 1824–1825 during the city’s planned expansion beyond the former Schwabinger Gate. Its construction took place after Bavaria became a kingdom, when the resident population was increasing and Munich was being reshaped with new avenues, public spaces, and uniform building fronts.
From 1812, suburbs were planned outside the Schwabinger Gate. Leo von Klenze, the German neoclassical architect who became a leading architect of the Bavarian court, prepared a general plan for this area after arriving in Munich in 1816. The municipal building commission approved the plan in 1817. The outer gate and its bastions were demolished, houses on the ramparts were removed, and the stream occupying the city moat was covered. The former Fürstenplatz was levelled and developed as the present Odeonsplatz, while Ludwigstrasse and Brienner Strasse became major avenues lined with continuous, regular facades.
Klenze planned Palais Moy on property belonging to Marcus von Stetten, Munich’s police prefect. The palace stood beside the Theatinerkirche, a major Baroque church on Odeonsplatz, and was designed to extend from the church’s northern tower to Brienner Strasse. Regulations for the building’s close proximity to the church required a symmetrical facade corresponding to the former Theatine monastery on the church’s south side. They also limited the church-side facade’s height to the capitals of the tower’s large pilasters, which are shallow rectangular projections resembling columns.
Owners and aristocratic residence
Franz Xaver Trautmann, a jeweller, was the palace’s first owner. In 1829, the long building was divided into two separately numbered halves, numbers 23 and 24. Trautmann kept the seven-bay section adjoining the church until 1833, after which that part passed through several owners.
Trautmann sold the northern section at the Brienner Strasse corner in 1830 to Anton Gsellhofer, a wealthy dyer of silk and other fine fabrics from Cham. Gsellhofer sold it later that year to Count Aloys von Arco-Stepperg, known as Louis. Aloys had recently married Irene, Margravine of Pallavicini, and acquired the palace as a representative Munich residence with financial help from his mother, Maria Leopoldine, the widowed Electress of Bavaria and an archduchess of Austria-Este.
The marriage of Aloys von Arco-Stepperg and Irene von Pallavicini remained childless and ended in separation in 1851. After Irene’s death in 1877, Aloys married Pauline Oswald, a Munich actress and dancer who had been his long-term partner. He legitimized their daughter Sophie, who had been born in 1868.
In 1890, Sophie married Ernst, Count von Moy de Sons, a member of the French nobility and a Royal Bavarian Imperial Councillor. In Bavaria’s constitutional monarchy, an Imperial Councillor belonged to the parliament’s upper chamber. Their marriage was childless. When Sophie died in 1952, her substantial paternal inheritance passed to the Counts von Moy de Sons, who continue to own the palace.
War damage and reconstruction
Munich’s bombing on 17 December 1944 completely destroyed the palace’s lavish interior, which had been decorated in several stylistic traditions. Photographs taken in 1932 preserve its prewar appearance. Georg Hellmuth Winkler rebuilt Palais Moy between 1950 and 1952, reuniting the two former halves and broadly following Klenze’s neoclassical design.
The reconstructed property is now addressed as 1 Brienner Strasse and contains shops and offices. Palais Moy is designated as a historic monument. The rebuilding preserved the character of Klenze’s urban palace while adapting parts of the ground floor for commercial use.
Remains
Urban palace and facade
Palais Moy occupies the corner of Brienner Strasse and Odeonsplatz immediately north of the Theatinerkirche. Its broad, elongated form originally comprised two adjoining sections: a seven-bay part beside the church and a northern wing running to the Brienner Strasse corner. The facade was deliberately kept lower than nearby buildings because the church-side elevation could rise only to the level of the capitals of the church tower’s large pilasters. Along Brienner Strasse, the western wing included a mezzanine, a partial floor between the main storeys, allowing it to match the height of its neighbours.
The palace’s placement and appearance were designed to correspond with the former Theatine monastery on the opposite side of the church. At the rear beside the Theatinerkirche, the building had barred openings rather than ordinary open windows, as required by the regulations governing its immediate surroundings. The rebuilt ground floor has large round-arched windows that serve as shop windows, replacing the small rectangular openings of the original design. A seam in the roof still indicates the division between the two former halves.
Interior and surviving design
The original interior was elaborately decorated in several stylistic traditions, but the bombing destroyed it in 1944. Its appearance survives through photographs made in 1932 rather than through the interior fabric itself. The postwar reconstruction retained the palace’s neoclassical character and the principal external design associated with Klenze, while the altered ground-floor windows reflect the building’s present commercial function.
