Leo von Klenze is an architect and Bavarian painter born with Schladen, close to Goslar in Lower Saxony, on February 29th 1784 and died in this same city on January 27th 1864. The Germany, like the France and the Italy, sees arriving the architecture Néoclassique which succeeds the baroque in first half of the 19th century. Leo von Klenze is the most important Bavarian representative of this current. In a way comparable with that of Karl Friedrich Schinkel, it introduces a romantic dimension into its architecture.

Leo von Klenze studies with Paris before making the traditional voyages of Italy and England. After this formation, he becomes architect of the court of the king Maximilien Ier of Bavaria then of his successor Louis Ier of Bavaria. He particularly exerts his talents in the capital of the kingdom, Munich. One owes him the installation of Ludwigstrasse, the Obélisque of the Karolinenplatz in 1833 (dedicated to: 30000 Bavarian soldiers died during the Countryside of Russia in 1812), the Propylée S of the Königsplatz (1848-1860), monumental gate of doric style, and especially two museums: the Glyptothèque of Munich (1816 - 1830) and the Alte Pinakothek (1826 - 1836). These two buildings take again reasons for the ancient style, with for example their gantry octostyle surmounted by a pediment. The distribution of spaces is rational there; around the big rooms of exposure, are laid out of the lines of smaller room or studies. In the park of the castle of Nymphenburg, Leo von Klenze also carries out a Fabrique.

Apart from its work of Munich, Leo von Klenze conceived, at the request of the tsar Nicolas Ier of Russia, part of the palate of the Ermitage of Saint-Pétersbourg (1842-1850).

However, it is necessary to turn over in Bavaria, a few kilometres from Regensburg, to be interested in the one of its most outstanding achievements, the Walhalla (1830-1842). This imposing Temple with Greek of doric style which overhangs the the Danube is the Pantheon with the glory of the Germanic heroes.