Future Perfect

High-concept museums, sleek new hotels, tech spaces that double as cultural centers: Munich has shed its Oktoberfest image and emerged as a European Silicon Valley. But don't worry-there are still plenty of BMWs and lederhosen to go around.

- Joshua Levine

THE LOW SKYLINE of Munich is dominated by the 323-foot-high, copper-topped spires of the old Frauenkirche cathedral, which by tradition are meant to remain the tallest things in town. Looking up from the street, however, the things you first notice are construction cranes. They are everywhere. Munich is a medieval city; its official founding day is June 14, 1158. But Munich is refounding itself all over again, and fast. Even if you've been this way before (say, for a sudsy Oktoberfest), you'll pass through quite a different place when you return.

Few cities are as burdened by visual clichés as Munich. Once seen, the jovial chap in leather shorts with a silly feather in his silly hat is impossible to unsee. He's still around, bless him, hoisting his silo-size beer stein. Munich holds tight to its Bavarian traditions. But today's Münchner is just as likely to be a skinny young coder in a hoodie who has moved to this town to become a part of the frenetic start-up scene.

Twenty years ago, “laptops and lederhosen" was a vague political promise. Now it's a brand. The annual Bits and Pretzels start-up conference began in 2013 with a breakfast for 80 people. In 2017, it had to cap attendance at 5,000. In 2019, President Obama showed up. Apple has made Munich its biggest European engineering hub. Last year, it pumped $1.2 billion into a new building on Karlstrasse. These are just two among many examples of how the future is taking root in Munich's beer-soaked soil.

AS A MUSIC LOVER in a land of them, my first look at Munich's breakneck urban renewal had to be the new Gasteig auditorium and cultural complex, which had opened just a week before my visit last October. It was built as a temporary home for the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, whose old red-brick headquarters are to get their own top-to-bottom makeover.