Once upon a time, royal Bavarian troops paraded on these grounds. Later the area served as Munich’s first commercial and private airfield.  After 1945, the material from the bombed out buildings of Munich created a giant pile of debris 1300 meters long and up to 60 m high. This debris was heaped up on the grassland then known as Oberwiesenfeld.

Years went by and Oberwiesenfeld was an idle, flat wasteland. Then it suddenly awoke from its big sleep in 1966. That year the cornerstone of “Munich’s once-in-a-hundred-years present” was laid. This present later became known as the Olympic park. The International Olympic Committee assigned the 1972 Summer Olympics to Munich. Of course a national architectural competition was quickly held. It was won by architects Günter Behnisch und Partner from Stuttgart. They conceived the famed pavilion roofs of several Olympic buildings.  It is now considered one of the most artistic and technical marvels of world architecture.

Starting from the notion that a pile of debris, today’s Olympic Hill, already represented artificial landscape. The architects developed a theme thus shaping the area. They created a lake at the end of the elongated hill and molded the otherwise completely flat land using earth dams and landfills into a diverse park. The park contains embedded stadiums, sports halls and athletic residence buildings. Not to mention the 291 m tall Olympic Tower that offers a unique view over Munich and in good visibility, the Alps. It also houses a restaurant and the world’s highest rock music museum.

Since the end of the 1972 Olympic Summer Games, over 8,800 cultural, commercial and sports events have taken place here. The Olympic Park boasts over 157 million visitors since the Summer Games. Around 70 million have participated in sports activities or attended the shows. Munich’s Olympic Park emerged as Europe’s largest event and amusement park.

The Olympic size swimming pool with gym and sauna area has its own support group, just like the skating rink. The current refurbishments do not limit operation. The legendary concerts of the Theatron summer music festival that take place each August constitute the world’s longest contiguous open-air concert. This is according to the Guinness Book of World Records. The park continues to prosper. Even after the new soccer stadium, the Allianz-Arena in Freimann, was completed. Meaning that since the Allianz has opened there are no longer soccer (considered “king of sports” in Germany) matches at the Olympic Stadium.

2007 was the year of big comebacks in boxing. First to return to the rink was Henry Maske, then followed by Vitali Klitschko. Vitali’s goal is to become world champion at the same time as his brother Wladimir! His first step towards this objective will be the fight against US-American Jameel McCline at the Olympic Arena (now postponed to 2008).

Exactly 15 years ago, then mayor Georg Kronawitter called the Olympic Park the “most beautiful stage of flourishing Munich”. Nothing has changed since then!


by Inés Berber