Olympic Park Munich

As early as 1963, Munich’s second mayor Georg Brauchle mused: “Olympic Games in Munich, that would be a nice idea”. Less than ten years later, the idea became reality with the Munich Olympic Park. To this day, the ensemble on Oberwiesenfeld is also considered an architectural icon – and a hot contender for UNESCO status. Read everything you need to know about the new potential UNESCO World Heritage Site here.

The Munich Olympic Park: An optical sensation

The foundation stone for the Munich Olympic Park was laid in 1969. The green area opened at the same time as the “Olympiazentrum” subway station for the 1972 Olympic Games. The centerpiece of the Olympic Park, alongside the Olympic Hall, is the Olympic Stadium, designed by Behnisch & Partner, with its characteristic tent roof. From the time of its construction, the roof was considered an unprecedented visual sensation. Only an international outcry in the press prevented the roof from being dismantled after the end of the Games, as originally planned. Visible from afar, the 291-metre-high Olympic Tower also marks the site as by far the undisputed high point of Munich’s traditionally limited building heights.

The ensemble of the Munich Olympic Park found its place in the area of a pile of rubble on the Oberwiesenfeld. The site is located northwest of the city center and covers an area of around 85 hectares. The pile of rubble, consisting mainly of Munich houses bombed during the Second World War, piled up to 60 meters high and consisted of a total of 10 million cubic meters of rubble. At just over 565 meters above sea level, the Olympiaberg is also one of the highest elevations in the otherwise quite flat Munich.

Olympiapak Munich: Events, tourism and recreation

The Olympic Lake meanders through the west-east axis of the Olympic site, dividing the site into a northern section with a stadium, tower and swimming pool and a park-like southern section. Similar to the Olympic roof, its conversion into a parking lot was successfully prevented at the time.

In addition to major sporting events, concerts and fairs also take place on the site of the Munich Olympic Park. It is estimated that around eight million people, locals and tourists, visit the events and sports facilities every year or simply use the site for recreation. Munich’s Olympic Park is also the sports venue that has hosted the most international tournaments in Germany to date. Over 30 world championships and more than 10 European championships have been held in the Munich Olympic Park since its opening.

The ensemble around the Munich Olympic Park has been a listed building since 1998. In the future, its status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site will be recognized internationally. Initial efforts to this end began at the end of 2017. If the Olympic Park were to achieve UNESCO World Heritage status, it would be the first in the Bavarian capital.

Munich Olympic Park – UNESCO World Heritage Site?

In addition to the design manual for the Olympic Park, which was conceived by stauss processform and Auer Weber Architekten, and the framework plan designed by mahl gebhard konzepte, the park maintenance plan is another important basis for the World Heritage application. It was drawn up by Arge Katrin Schulze, Munich, and the TOPOS office in Berlin. As a comprehensive garden conservation report, it serves as a conceptual guideline, defines objectives and is the basis for a detailed concept of measures for the Olympic Park. In this way, the park maintenance work for the Olympic Park addresses a wide range of aspects that are of great importance for the application for UNESCO World Heritage status.

The Munich Olympic Park’s application for the title of UNESCO World Heritage Site reached an important milestone in July 2021. Munich’s Lord Mayor Dieter Reiter submitted a preliminary application for the inclusion of his Olympic Park on the UNESCO World Heritage List. In September, the Free State of Bavaria finally announced that the ensemble around the Munich Olympic Park would be added to the German Tentative List of UNESCO World Heritage Sites alongside the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg.

You can take a virtual tour of the Munich Olympic Park here.

Not overnight

For the Bavarian Minister of State for Science and the Arts, Bernd Sibler, the Olympic Park stands for the victory of a new democratic social order in post-war Germany: “The complex was built on a mountain of rubble from the Second World War, where the civilian victims of the war are still commemorated today. With its modern, unifying architecture, it embodies the Olympic idea of peace and community. At the same time, however, it is also a perpetual memorial to an inhuman attack. Both sites are of exceptional universal value. A designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site would be more than justified.”

However, the Olympic Park will not receive the coveted UNESCO seal of approval overnight: The process may well take another ten to twenty years. Only 32 new sites are awarded the UNESCO World Heritage title each year – but there are over 1,000 applicants on the waiting list. In the next stage of the application process, an international group of experts commissioned by the Standing Conference of the Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK) will evaluate the proposals from the federal states – each of which will be allowed to submit two. The KMK will then make a final decision on the applications in 2024.

There are currently ten UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Bavaria. These include the old towns of Bamberg and Regensburg, the Danube Limes, the Würzburg Residence and the Bayreuth Opera House.

Find out which projects UNESCO has awarded World Heritage status in 2021 here.

No Olympic Park, but also a stadium without the Olympic Games: Our colleagues from Baumeister present the Seville Olympic Stadium, a venue for the 2021 European Championships.