1972 – The Best of German Architecture

Sometimes I get asked what my favourite piece of German architecture is.  My response is always the sports park of the Olympic summer games 1972 in Munich.   

Situated in a crisp green park, the structure emerges as a mirage of silvery hills behind the lake.  An array of slender pylons surrounds a drama of transparent, shimmering spider webs that cover grandstands and sports venues.  

Munich won the Olympic bid in 1966, and a year later Gunter Behnisch (1922-2010) won the architectural competition for the central sports venues.   His team was joined by Frei Otto (1925- ), the structural pioneer of the ‘hovering roof’, and the landscape designer Günther Grzimek (1915-1996).  Great architecture – in my opinion – happens when great minds join forces.  At the time of the competition, nobody had any idea of how to construct a hovering roof; Frei Otto was just about experiment with the much smaller German pavilion for the Expo in Montreal.  The chairman of the jury, Egon Eiermann (1904-1970), however, convinced his team - including representatives of the German government - to choose this design.   Today, opting for such a risky choice would be unlikely, but the 1970s were all about new and futuristic design, and the Olympic sports complex was the materialisation of that vision.

The organisers outlined the character of the games and the venues before the competition. They aimed for an ‘Olympiad in the green’ and the architects were to create an ‘Olympic landscape.’The idea of merging the sports venue with the landscape led the designers away from traditional roofs to the more open, free-form ‘umbrellas’; one thing led to the other.

The site contained a hill of debris from the air-raids of the former airfield, as well as a flood over path.  These features were incorporated into the landscape scheme. They dammed the flow path to become a lake surrounded by the re-modelled artificial ridge continued by the tent roof.  This roof-landscape later became the icon of the games.  Günther Grzimek, the landscape designer, explained: “Its shape has been developed toward an aesthetic of the natural, like a humane ecology, in order to allow the users for a maximum of self-actualisation.”

Günter Behnisch, the architect, who was drafted to the navy at the age of 17, hated dictatorship and its expression through grave, formal architecture.  He developed a deliberate ‘free-flow modernism’ of light-weight buildings.  Avoiding the appearance of bulk and weight as much as possible, he nestled the grandstands into the mould of the landscapes, much like the ancient Greek amphitheatres, and sheltered them with floating tensile sails. As all the heavy building components were hidden underground, the overall effect is light and serene.

The 80,000 m2 roof structure became Frei Otto’s masterpiece. He loved to soar in light-weight planes and already had an interest in membranes and tensile structures before he had to serve as young combat pilot in the war.  Published in 1954, his doctorate thesis “The suspended roof” explored the nature of tensile roof structures.  He began researching biology and building in 1961 and founded the Institute for Lightweight Structures in Stuttgart in 1964. Frei Otto was the only person who could possibly execute the titanic task of this roof.   International professionals were highly doubtful of the project, especially in light of the youthful nature of the engineering team (the oldest was aged 33).

Incredibly, they achieved it in just four years.  Despite the angst directed at them, driven by pure dedication, the team created a cluster of buildings and structures that almost defy the impossible.  I believe that when this happens, things become inherently beautiful. The tensile roofs are the epitome of structural engineering and – at the same time – supremely graceful. Reminiscent of Hitler’s Olympic games of 1936, the country wished to demonstrate that it had found its way back into the humane civilisation.  They hoped to deliver a colourful, serene event, one that showcased Germany both as a leader and as a good neighbour.

The graphics for the Olympics were designed by the pacifist Otl Aicher (1922-1991). He had refused to join the Hitler-youth, became imprisoned, supported the resistance against the regime, and finally deserted from the Wehrmacht.  After the war he studied sculpting and became a co-founder of the famous School of Design in Ulm in 1953, succeeding Bauhaus.  Otl Aicher designed the entire visual display including plans, programs, signage, tickets, and posters (http://www.1972municholympics.co.uk/index.php). He created the sports pictograms which have been benchmarked ever-since. Everything radiated a cheerful order (it’s still Germany!).

The era at the beginning of the 70s was the luckiest I can remember.  Dreams had become true. Man could walk on the moon.  Modern technology seemed to solve every problem.  There was unspoiled optimism everywhere – I felt entirely at home.  But my naïve teenage dream was doomed.

On the 5^th of September 1972, a shadow was cast when a Palestinian terror group took the Israel sports team hostage; Germany’s history had reared its head again. The helpless attempts of the completely flatfooted German police ended in a disastrous butchery.  Terrorism would continue to overshade the rest of the 1970s and further.  In the same year as the Olympic Games, the Club of Rome published ‘The Limits to Growth’, computer-modelling the effects of unleashed population growth; of the exploitation of resources and the disastrous consequences of pollution.  1973 saw the oil-embargo of the Arabian countries, and ‘car-free Sundays’ with empty motorways.  The 70s dream had come to its conclusion and the games had been its fanfare.

Today, after almost four decades, the trees of the Olympic landscape accentuate an architectural park which – to me – represents the most advanced peak of post-war Modernism.  Compared with Beijing, even today Munich seems to me to be greener, more visionary.  Reflecting on this from New Zealand, I wonder when we too will seek after architecture that works with, and not against, the natural landscape.   This is our vision of the future.