Feldherrnhalle

Corking up Odeonsplatz's south side is the Feldherrnhalle, built by Klenze's main rival Friedrich von Gärnter and modelled on the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence. Sombre and chunky, it honours the valour of the Bavarian army and positively drips with testosterone; just check out the statues of General Johann Tilly, who kicked the Swedes out of Munich during the Thirty Years' War; and Karl Phillip von Wrede, who first fought with, then against Napoleon in the early 19th century.

It was at the Feldherrnhalle where, on 9 November 1923, police stopped the so-called Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler's attempt to bring down the Weimar Republic. A fierce skirmish left 20 people, including 16 Nazis, dead. A plaque in the pavement of the square's eastern side commemorates the police officers who perished in the incident.