About MucBook

MucBook

MucBook is Munich's creative city magazine — the Stadtmagazin that began in 2009 as a city blog and has grown into the Bavarian capital's independent local-media brand. Published by the Medienhaus München Eisenack UG and founded by the journalist Marco Eisenack with the two Süddeutsche Zeitung journalists Sebastian Gierke and Christoph Leischwitz, MucBook went online in 2009 as one of Germany's first blogger magazines — Munich's first metablog and blogger network — and has appeared in print since 2013, two to three times a year with themed issues. With the slogan "Weniger Bussibussi, mehr Amore," the magazine covers Munich's culture, city life, gastronomy, urban development, sport, and creative economy — and since 2019 it has operated the MucBook Clubhaus coworking spaces, making it the city magazine that not only writes about Munich but actively shapes the city's spaces. In 2026 MucBook became the media partner of the SpaceNet Award, the biennial prize for short stories and photography.

Overview

The magazine presents itself as Munich's creative city magazine — the independent voice of the city's culture and urban life. Its editorial program covers the Munich topics: the culture — the exhibitions, the concerts, the theater, the literature, and the creative scene; the city — the urban development, the neighborhoods, the architecture, and the public spaces; the gastronomy — the restaurants, the cafés, the bars, and the food culture; the lifestyle — the sport, the leisure, and the Munich ways of life; and the creative and cultural economy — the actors, the projects, and the ideas that shape the city's future. The print issues are themed: past issues have covered food, urban development, sport, and the creative and cultural economy.

The readership is Munich's culturally engaged urban public: the creative professionals, the young city dwellers, the culture-goers, and the citizens interested in their city's development. The magazine's authority rests on its network: founded as Munich's first metablog and blogger network, MucBook combines its own editorial contributions with the posts of cooperating Munich bloggers — through the cooperation with the Deutsche Journalistenschule and other media academies, the number of contributors grew to around 400 authors and photographers. The mucbook.de site is organized in the sections Leben (life), Kultur (culture), Stadt (city), and Tagebücher (diaries) — the diaries carrying the cooperating blogs' entries as a digital journal.

The print magazine appears two to three times a year (per the 2017/2018 media kit: half-yearly, spring/autumn, at 4 euros, with a circulation of 15,000), distributed through the press wholesale (Grossisten Jost and Presse-Vertrieb Hermann Trunk) in around 400 kiosks, supermarkets, and magazine shops in Munich and the region, plus the partner hotspots — the Denn's organic markets, the Haus der Kunst, the Villa Stuck, the bookshops, and the cultural venues. The 2019-founded MucBook Clubhaus — the coworking and co-creation concept in interim-use spaces — extends the magazine into the physical city: the members' coworking by day, the networking evenings, the workshops and think tanks on weekends.

History

MucBook's history begins in 2009, when the three SZ journalists Marco Eisenack, Sebastian Gierke, and Christoph Leischwitz founded the city blog mucbook.de. The founding idea was to occupy the missing niche of a city magazine in blog form in Munich: alongside the journalists, Munich bloggers, students, and artists were to contribute to the magazine. As Munich's first metablog and blogger network, mucbook.de connected the city's blogosphere — one of the first blogger magazines in Germany.

The blog's growth came through the media academies: the cooperation with the Deutsche Journalistenschule (German School of Journalism) and other media academies brought the young journalists into the network, growing the contributor base to around 400 authors and photographers. In 2013, mucbook.de was awarded "best blog of Munich" in the Isar-Award — and in the same year the first print edition of MucBook appeared, establishing the print magazine that has since appeared two to three times a year with themed issues.

The magazine's institutionalization continued: the founding of the Medienhaus München Eisenack UG as the publishing house (Schwanthalerstraße 184, 80339 Munich; managing director Marco Eisenack), the launch of the "Member-Club" in 2017 — the members receiving discounted city events, gastronomy vouchers, concert guest-list places, and monthly curator tours for a membership fee — and the 2019 launch of the MucBook Clubhaus: the co-creation concept that puts temporarily available spaces in properties awaiting redevelopment to innovative, meaningful parallel interim use, giving cultural and creative workers affordable project spaces. The media partnership with the SpaceNet Award 2026 — the biennial prize for short stories and photography, awarded since 2013 — documents the magazine's current position as a fixture of Munich's cultural institutions.

Coverage and Content

The magazine's coverage follows Munich's creative city life. Culture forms the core: the exhibitions, the concerts, the theater and dance, the literature, and the creative scene's actors and projects — reported with the network's insider knowledge. City and urban development cover the Munich that changes: the neighborhoods, the architecture, the public spaces, the mobility, and the housing — the magazine as the forum of the city's future debates.

Gastronomy and lifestyle cover the Munich that enjoys: the restaurants, the cafés, the bars, the food culture, and the leisure — with the member club's gastronomy vouchers connecting the editorial coverage to the readers' city experience. The creative and cultural economy — the actors, the startups, the civil-society initiatives, and the innovation hub MUNICH NEXT LEVEL — documents the magazine's own milieu: the creative talents and the Mittelstand in direct exchange, per the herCAREER profile.

The Tagebücher (diaries) section of mucbook.de carries the cooperating blogs' entries — the blogger network's daily Munich journal. The SpaceNet Award media partnership extends the coverage into the literary and photographic arts: the award gala's reporting and the presentation of selected short stories and winning images on the magazine's digital platforms.

Organization and Ownership

MucBook is published by the Medienhaus München Eisenack UG (haftungsbeschränkt) — the Munich media house of founder Marco Eisenack (marco.eisenack@textbau.de / marco.eisenack@medienhausmuenchen.de), based at Schwanthalerstraße 184, 80339 Munich. The media house also publishes the city guide Slow Down, the school and training magazine Kolossal, and the Munich environmental blog gruenundgloria.de. The print magazine's editorial team (per the 2017/2018 media kit): editor-in-chief Melanie Schindlbeck (melanie@mucbook.de), Ronja Lotz (ronja@mucbook.de); art direction Christian Hundertmark; advertising management Marco Eisenack (089 21 59 54 24).

The MucBook Clubhaus — the coworking and co-creation spaces near the Hauptbahnhof and in the Westend — operates the membership model: the members pay a monthly fee for the flexible workspace, the networking, and the workshops. The commercial model is that of an independent city magazine: print sales (4 euros per issue, 15,000 circulation) and subscriptions, advertising from the Munich businesses and cultural institutions, the member club's fees, and the Clubhaus's coworking and event-space revenues.

Digital Presence

The magazine's digital home is mucbook.de — the creative city magazine's portal with the sections Leben, Kultur, Stadt, and Tagebücher. The site extends the print magazine's themed issues into the continuous Munich coverage: the news, the events, the culture, and the lifestyle, with the cooperating bloggers' diaries as the daily journal. The social-media channels (Facebook and others) carry the magazine's Munich conversation; the SpaceNet Award partnership's digital presentations — the short stories and winning images — illustrate the platform's cultural programming.

The MucBook Clubhaus's digital infrastructure — the personalized mobile door opening, the online booking software for available spaces, the member-matching networking app — forms the technological layer of the co-creation concept. The media house's network — Slow Down, Kolossal, gruenundgloria.de — extends the digital reach across the Munich topics. From the 2009 city blog to the 2026 SpaceNet Award media partnership, MucBook has become Munich's creative city magazine: "weniger Bussibussi, mehr Amore," in print, online, and in the Clubhaus's physical spaces.