Odeon (Munich)

The Odeon is a former concert hall in the Odeonsplatz in Munich, Bavaria, Germany, which is named after it. Built in the early 19th century to a design by Leo von Klenze and forming a counterpoint to the externally identical Palais Leuchtenberg, it was rebuilt after being almost totally destroyed in World War II and now houses the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior.

The Odeon was built in 1826–1828 on a commission from King Ludwig I of Bavaria and was originally a concert hall and ballroom. Klenze designed the exterior as an identical counterpart to that of the Palais Leuchtenberg, so that there was no outward indication of its function. The auditorium, which measured 75 by 125 feet (23 by 38 m) and seated 1,445, had two superimposed colonnades which provided access on the ground floor and a gallery with standing room, and a ceiling 50 feet (15 m) high with a skylight. The orchestra was accommodated in a semi-circular exedra, behind which in niches were busts by Johannes Leeb of the ten composers then considered most important in the history of music: Beethoven, Mozart, Gluck, Handel, Haydn, Vogler, Méhul, Weber, Cimarosa and Winter. The ceiling was decorated with frescoes in the Nazarene style: Apollo among the Muses by Wilhelm Kaulbach, Apollo among the Herdsmen by Adam Eberle and The Judgement of Midas by Hermann Anschütz. The hall, which has been called "one of the most extraordinary classical architectural solutions of the concert hall", had excellent acoustics and was popular with the public.

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