Step inside our fourth-floor home between Munich’s Old Town and Maxvorstadt. We will show you the rooms, the rituals, the people (and one very charming dog) that make our Munich office feel less like an address and more like a promise.
The city outside our windows
From our fourth-floor windows, Munich speaks in many voices: a film city with more than a century of German and European production still humming in studios and side streets; a soccer city where FC Bayern’s red threads through shopfronts and train platforms; a city of art and culture whose museums, stages, and restless galleries shape our everyday routes. On the map it is the Bavarian state capital; in the air a southern lilt earns its nickname as Italy’s northernmost city. The curve of the Olympiapark keeps 1972 present. The Hofbräuhaus and the Theresienwiese anchor a season that swells into Oktoberfest, the largest folk festival in the world. Students and scientists set the tempo of a university city and research hotspot. Above all, Munich keeps its promise of a world city with a heart, the backdrop to our daily work.
Where we work
Our headquarters sits on the fourth floor of a mixed residential and office building right at the hinge between the Old Town and Maxvorstadt. Maxvorstadt is a neighborhood where culture and education shape daily life. Historic façades and elegant apartments line streets full of cafés, bars, and restaurants; students and artists give it a lively, contemporary pulse that never eclipses its traditions. From our door, a short walk brings us to Odeonsplatz. To the right rises the Theatinerkirche, its yellow front and distinctive dome impossible to miss. Straight ahead stands the Feldherrnhalle, drawing inspiration from the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, all open arches and ceremony. To the left, the classical Residenz gives way to the Hofgarten, a perfectly symmetrical garden that puts calm within earshot of traffic. Just a few more minutes and we reach the Kunstareal with the Alte, Neue, and Moderne Pinakothek surrounded by smaller exhibition houses, an ensemble that turns a lunch break into a lesson in art history. Our central location is also the reason many of our colleagues bike to the office on workdays.
“Munich speaks in many voices”
In step with the city’s rhythm
Working in the center means we feel the city’s big moments as they unfold. IAA Mobility turns streets into a testing ground for the future of mobility. The Munich Security Conference brings world leaders and observers to our neighborhood each winter. As Advent approaches, the lights switch on, and the evenings take on a warm, golden tone. The scents of roasted almonds, mulled wine, and fresh gingerbread drift toward our windows. We are tucked between some of Munich’s most atmospheric Christmas markets, where traditional stalls sell wood carvings, handmade jewelry, and Bavarian specialties. Even before we leave the office, we can sense the season arriving.
How this became home
Our story at Oskar-von-Miller-Ring began in 2016, when ARTTIC S.A.S. acquired the assets and most employees of GABO:mi in Germany. From 2020 we operated under the name ARTTIC Innovation to expand ARTTIC’s German activities. This summer, in alignment with the Europe-wide One-PNO strategy, we took on the name PNO Innovation GmbH. In 2023 we renovated the space, refreshed the furnishings, and consolidated the team on the fourth floor, giving up earlier rooms on the fifth and sixth floors as hybrid work took hold after the pandemic. Twenty-one colleagues anchor our Munich site, while a total of thirty-seven PNO Innovation GmbH employees across Germany rotate in and out through the year.
Light, scale, and open doors
Inside, daylight is the first design element you notice. Pastel blue accents keep the mood soft without tipping into cool. Ergonomic chairs and height-adjustable desks let each of us set up our ideal workspace. We do not sit in a single open-plan hall: our offices are spread across three former apartments, and most rooms hold two or three colleagues. The scale fosters focus but never isolation. Doors stay open, and conversations move easily from room to room. A colleague once summed it up neatly: “Whenever I come to the office, I am greeted by smiling faces.”
After work, still together
Even when a day has been intense – say, the last phase before submitting a proposal – we often choose not to go straight home. We grab a bite or a drink together, find a screen for a big soccer match, or sit around crafting diaper cakes for the newest PNO arrivals. The moments are unplanned and private, which is probably why they matter.
The courtyard and the party everyone talks about
Like many buildings in this part of town, ours opens through a short driveway into a quiet courtyard. In the second row sits a small rear house. Munich’s rear-courtyard houses are an urban and social phenomenon rooted in the city’s nineteenth- and early twentieth-century growth. On the first floor of our own rear building, next to another office, we keep a conference and meeting room with a kitchen. Once a year, during Advent, many hands transform it in a matter of hours into a festive, lovingly decorated pre-Christmas space. Colleagues arrive from across Germany; this is when all thirty-seven PNO Innovation GmbH employees gather in Munich to look back on an eventful, successful year with the right mix of good food, lively company, and music. The setting is historic, the mood contemporary, and the result is always the same: the legendary company Christmas party in the rear building that people talk about well into January.
“Remote colleagues slip into our routine without ceremony”
An open invitation
If you find yourself in Munich or nearby, come to our downtown offices. We will be glad to see you. Until then, we wish you, your friends, and your families a warm Advent season and a peaceful Christmas in uncertain geopolitical times.
Florian Riegel (Right)