Palais Preysing

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Palais Preysing is a Rococo palace in Munich, at Residenzstraße 27, opposite the Residenz. It is the former home of the Counts of Preysing and is also called the Elder Palais Preysing to tell it apart from the nearby Palais Neuhaus-Preysing. Architect Joseph Effner built it from 1723 to 1728 for Count Johann Maximilian of Preysing-Hohenaschau. It is Munich’s first Rococo-style palace, with stucco on the exterior. The four-story building originally included richly furnished rooms, a chapel, a ballroom, and a grand staircase.

On October 15, 1835, the Bayerische Hypotheken- und Wechsel-Bank opened offices there with 11 employees. The palace was destroyed in World War II and rebuilt in the 1950s, with the ground floor redesigned for shops. The decorated staircase is open to the public.

The mansion sits behind the Feldherrnhalle at Odeonsplatz. A small alley behind it, Viscardigasse, connects Residenzstrasse and Theatinerstraße and is named after Giovanni Antonio Viscardi; locals used to call it Drueckebergergasse (the “shirker’s lane”). During the Beer Hall Putsch, some people avoided saluting at the Feldherrnhalle by walking down Viscardigasse. In the mid-1990s, a gold-waved strip of pavement was laid in Viscardigasse to memorialize this civil resistance.