Alter Hof

Excavations have shown that a castle already stood on the site in the late twelfth century; it may have been founded by Otto von Wittelsbach and extended by his son, Louis the Kelheim. After the first partition of Bavaria in 1255, the Alter Hof became the residence of Louis II, Duke of Bavaria, in what was then the north-eastern corner of the town. The town's great fire of 1327 also reached the ducal castle. The Lorenz Chapel on its north side was rebuilt as a new, more spacious church around 1324, a date fixed by inscription, and housed the imperial regalia until 1350.

Louis IV, first of the Wittelsbachs to take the German royal throne in 1314, was crowned emperor by the Roman people in 1328 and returned from Italy to Bavaria in 1330. He chose the Alter Hof as a fixed seat, making it the first permanent imperial residence in the Holy Roman Empire, though he still travelled the Empire frequently in the older tradition of itinerant kingship.

Duke John II began building a new residence, the Neuveste, in the north-eastern corner of the town from 1385, in part to keep the court in a defensible position against an unruly city; over later centuries the Neuveste grew into today's Munich Residenz. At the end of the fifteenth century Duke Sigismund still lived at the Alter Hof and enlarged it further, adding lozenge-patterned painting to the courtyard and a gothic oriel window on the Burgstock carrying rows of Wittelsbach coats of arms; the window is traditionally called the 'Monkey Tower' after a legend of a ducal menagerie ape carrying off the infant Louis the Bavarian, though the tower itself is thought to date only from the mid-fifteenth century. In the first half of the sixteenth century Duke William IV transferred the residence permanently to the Neuveste, after which the Alter Hof served only as the seat of government departments, including the stewardship, court chamber and court library.

The Pfisterstock, with gables typical of the Renaissance, was built in 1591–92 and is attributed to Wilhelm Egkl. A brewhouse and brewing office, later known as the Brunnenstock, went up in the first half of the seventeenth century. The Lorenz Chapel was closed in 1806 and demolished in 1816; the neoclassical Lorenzistock was built along the Hofgraben in its place in 1816–19, and the adjoining gate tower, also taken down in the same period, was later rebuilt. Georg Friedrich Ziebland replaced the old Brunnenstock in 1831–32 with a new building on its foundations for the tax cadastre commission.

Like most of the old town, the complex was partly destroyed in the Second World War; the Lorenzistock, Pfisterstock and Brunnenstock were rebuilt with simple means after 1950, while the Burgstock and Zwingerstock kept their older roof timbers and historical detail. The Bavarian state later fully restored the Burgstock and Zwingerstock, and in 2001 the postwar Lorenzistock, Pfisterstock and Brunnenstock were demolished and rebuilt for a private investor, becoming offices and apartments by 2005–06, a scheme the public received with dismay.

The Alter Hof is a listed architectural heritage monument in Bavaria. The Zwingerstock now houses a Manufactum store, and the medieval cellar beneath the Burgstock, dating from around 1300, holds an exhibition on the site's history; a donation plate of 1324 and a fresco of the Wittelsbach dukes painted after 1460, both once inside the complex, are now held by the Bavarian National Museum.