Valhalla of the Germans

Since the French Revolution, there had been great enthusiasm for monuments of every kind in Germany. Most of the projects for monuments to rulers, national monuments, and many others, remained purely notional, and were either never executed or only realised on a small scale. The great minds of the German nation was the subject of probably the most impressive monument project of the early 19th century, the Valhalla of the Germans built by Leo von Klenze on the Danube near Regensburg in 1830-42.

In 1814, the Bavarian King Ludwig I had proclaimed a competition, for which Gothic designs were also entered. However, Ludwig favoured a Doric peripteral on the model of the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens. It now dominates a riverside site at the head of a cascade of steps. Inside, the temple is designed in a thoroughly modern way as a hall with wall piers and top lights, while busts and statues of famous German people line the walls.

The Doric temple of the exterior opens up in the interior into a large hall, divided into three parts by wall piers and top-lit through an open roof. Several tiers of marble busts of famous Germans line the walls. The gallery level carries the names of people from the Dark Ages and medieval times who left no portraits behind. The Valkyrie caryatides in the loggias were carried out to designs by Klenze. In the centre of the entrance to the side rooms, the enthroned figure of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, founder of Valhalla, was installed in 1890, blocking the uninterrupted view into the opisthodomus and the scenery outside the window.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 4 minutes):

Richard Wagner: Die Walk�re, Ride of the Valkyries