Museum Five Continents

The Museum of Five Continents was founded in 1862 as the first ethnological museum in Germany, the Royal Ethnographic Collection.The museum's collection includes over 160,000 works of art, everyday and ritual objects from non-European peoples, 135,000 photographs and a specialist library with over 100,000 books. The collections of the House of Wittelsbach formed the historical basis for this. Permanent exhibitions and theme-related special exhibitions show similarities and differences between the various cultures.The museum building was built between 1859 and 1865 by Eduard Riedel as the Bavarian National Museum, whose collections have been housed in a new museum building on Prinzregentenstrasse since 1900, as the building soon proved too small despite its thirty-eight rooms. The client was King Maximilian II, on whose initiative Maximilianstrasse was built. From 1906 to 1925, the building served as the first, provisional exhibition building for the German Museum. Since 1926, the Ethnology Museum has been located in the building on Maximilianstrasse.After the client had decided on the building site at this location, the new building of the deaf-mute residence, which had reached the shell stage in 1858, had to be demolished at the donor's expense. The architecture of the two-storey monumental building with three-storey central and corner projections was influenced by the English Perpendicular Style. The main front is 147 metres long and consists of five blocks with continuous arcades and 25 axes with a richly decorated roof cornice. The entrance area is equipped with a loggia with nine axes. In keeping with the original dedication of the building, historical frescoes with scenes from Bavaria's past decorate some of the rooms on the first floor. The royal inscription "To the honour and example of my people", placed in capital letters under the roof, also refers to the history of its creation as a building for the National Museum.Source and further information: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_F%C3%BCnf_Kontinente

A very interesting museum!