Edited by Stephen Bates & Bruno Kurcker with photographs by Simon Burko

Over a period of ten years, British architect Stephen Bates and his Zurich-based colleague Bruno Krucker explored, investigated, and analysed the Bavarian capital in collaboration with their students. The resulting in-depth study evaluates the city’s building history and ideas for its future in detail and is now being presented in the form of a highly attractive compendium. This richly illustrated book takes a close look at the European city in general, using Munich as an example. Its features are illuminated through a variety of means: atmospheric photographs, precise plans, drawings, images of models, and texts reveal the multi-layered and complex character of the place with all its particularities, coincidences, and intentions. Like many other European cities, Munich has also been subject to incisive changes, whether through planned expansions, infrastructural developments, or war damage. This volume highlights how big plans and visions have often remained piecemeal, bound up with the paradigms of a generation, yet precisely because of this, they have proven to be unmistakable elements that shape Munich even until today.