Culture for everyone

Under the motto "Culture for everyone", we are using the example of the "Flower Power" mega-festival, which is currently bundling hundreds of events in Munich on the subject of "nature and art" and making culture easily accessible, about the further opening of cultural offerings for all and of course very specifically about the big cultural flagship, the Gasteig, its renovation, internationalization and future.

Max Wagner, the managing director of the Gasteig, is in demand as a resilient cultural manager. Born in Munich in 1969, he first studied law and then singing. After several years as a lawyer and singer, Max Wagner first became managing director of the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra and managing director of the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz in Munich before he took over the Gasteig, Europe's largest cultural center, in 2016. For him, the central task of the Gasteig is to make culture possible for everyone, to create spaces in which people can meet and experience and enjoy culture in all forms, without social barriers, easily accessible and open to everyone and everything.

A highlight of this season for Max Wagner is the Flower Power Festival 2023, which is present throughout Munich with around 850 events over eight months. The Gasteig initiated this festival together with the Kunsthalle, the Botanical Garden and the Biotopia Natural History Museum. The central theme: nature in the city. The special feature: It is not curated. Culture for everyone - the motto also applies here.

One of Max Wagner's major concerns is implementing this openness in his own company. His goal is to live a corporate culture that consists of a community and involves every individual in decisions, developments and processes.

After the Gasteig building in Haidhausen was in need of renovation, the cultural center moved to the interim site Gasteig HP8 in Sendling in 2021. As the client, the Gasteig managed to have both the Isarphilharmonie and all other interim buildings used by the Gasteig built and renovated in the shortest possible time and within the previously specified budget. With the acoustically highly praised Isarphilharmonie, the listed Hall E and a very colorful mix, the Gasteig is experimenting here for the culture of the future.

The conversation will take place in ludwig space, a place for dialogue and networking that I founded explicitly as a "Munich showcase" for precisely these future issues.