The Munich Olympic Park: a unique place...
(Januar 2011)

In 1972 the 20th Olympic Summer Games took place in the Olympic Park. More than three decades after this mega-event, the Munich Olympic Park is still a unique place in the world since it hasn’t become a historic site, but is still alive and thriving even more than 39 years after the Olympic Games.

One thing that makes the Munich Olympic Park something special is the unique and outstanding architecture of the buildings which are embedded in a magnificent landscape. The architects of the Olympic Park had three mottos when they designed the park: first, the 20th Olympic Summer Games were supposed to be games of short distances; second, the Olympic facilities in Munich were supposed to symbolize democracy and freedom (having learned from the experiences of WWII and the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin) thus they were designed as wide-open and bright buildings with huge glass walls; third, they wanted the Games to take place amid the green. Therefore, they designed an 850,000 square meter park consisting of artificial rolling hills (built by the debris of the Second World War) and a beautiful, curved artificial lake. Amongst this lovely landscape, they integrated the sport facilities: the Olympic Stadium, the Olympic Hall, the Olympic Swimming Pool and further smaller buildings. In order to preserve the image of the marvellous scenery, all the buildings were lowered into the ground so that only one third is visible on the surface. All the three buildings are connected by a very unique and extraordinary roof. This roof consists of a daring steel construction with many pylons different in height (up to 80 meters) and a spider web-like wire-cable-system. The entire roof is covered with acrylic glass plates. This 80,000 square-meter-roof symbolizes the Alps which are only a one hour drive away from Munich. Even though the Munich Olympic Park celebrated its 37th anniversary, the daring and courageous architecture still looks very up-to-date and holds up with today’s standards of modern architecture. What is more, besides the fact that the park still has a contemporary image, the Munich Olympic Park hasn’t turned into a historic site unlike many other former or later Olympic locations. Our park is still full of life. The Munich Olympic Park has almost 4 million paying visitors every year, not counting the thousands of people just taking a walk, running or visiting without taking a tour. In all the locations we have several hundred events every year, e.g. there were the finals of the FIFA World Cup

1974 and the UEFA European Cup 1988 in the Olympic Stadium and the Olympic Hall is booked (and mostly sold out) on more than 200 days a year with rock and pop concerts, sport events, exhibitions and fairs. With a maximum capacity of 75,000 for the Olympic Stadium and about 15,500 for the Olympic Hall, these two locations are the biggest event facilities in Munich and its surroundings. So, the Munich Olympic Park is not just a place for tourists to visit and marvel at the unique and outstanding architecture, but it is most of all a place for the local people to spend their leisure time visiting a variety of concerts and sport events or taking part in sports activities themselves like going to the swimming pool or the ice rink. To sum things up, The Munich Olympic Park is a thriving location and full of life like no other Olympic Park in the world.