Enter Munich, Germany where beer is not a drink but a lifestyle and pacing oneself is not an option.
We decide to spend our evening in authentic Hofbrauhaus, a cathedral to beer. This beer hall was everything you can imagine: songs filling the air, German cuisine, and BIG beers. Needless to say I went up against Munich and lost... Therefore the following morning and early afternoon were spent in grief and misery.
Early the next morning we visited the Dakau Concentration Camp which, despite my suffering, was a powerful experience. Above is the main building of the camp where prisoners were first brought and gathered every morning and evening.
Above is a reconstruction of a typical inmate barracks where up to 400 people would sleep in a room designed for 50.
Although Dakau was one of the few concentration camps that did not heavily use the gas chamber, they still had on in use (above). Passing through this room was quite unnerving as the air was heavy and the walls seem to be closing in. After a morning this saddening, it was nice to go see some sweet architecture to lighten the mood.
BMW Welt (above) is one of the more famous building of the past 5 or 10 years. It was designed by the firm Coop Himmelblau which happen to be one of my favorites so I was like a kid in a candy store. The use of tectonic elements combined with fluid forms created an incredibly kinetic environment and is definitely one of the highlights of the trip so far.
We were also lucky to see the 1972 Munich Olympic Complex (above) across the street from BMW Welt which is composed of a series of tensile membranes stretched across stadium, tracks, etc...
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