When you set foot in a new-build district in Munich today, you often get the impression of a soulless, run-of-the-mill city. “Courage to leave gaps!” is what you want to shout at the smooth, faceless facades. But has Munich always been so architecturally stale and lacking in innovation? Not at all. On the one-year anniversary of Justus Dahinden’s death (April 11), we take a look back… Almost […]
When you set foot in a new-build district in Munich today, you often get the impression of a soulless, run-of-the-mill city. “Courage to leave gaps!” is what you want to shout at the smooth, faceless facades. But has Munich always been so architecturally stale and lacking in innovation? Not at all. On the one-year anniversary of Justus Dahinden’s death (April 11), we take a look back…
Almost at the end of Schwabing’s most famous promenade, Leopoldstrasse, passers-by in the 1970s were presented with a very special sight: a large, gleaming shopping center with sharp building edges and a huge, rising sun on the façade. “Schwabylon” was written there in large letters. Its bold yellow, orange and red colors stand out – the building is reminiscent of a gigantic fairground stall. The gaudy, enameled façade panels form a peculiarly angular urban accent next to the grey apartment buildings in the background. How did this pop bunker come about?
In 1973, the well-known Swiss architect Justus Dahinden and the Augsburg building tycoon Otto Schnitzenbaumer wanted to land the big hit in Schwabing and create a leisure, entertainment and shopping center as a “breathing organism”. The Schwabylon caused a sensation at the time, and not without reason: it provoked the philistine bourgeoisie and still breathed the spirit of the economic miracle, exuded a touch of flower power and was a symbol of a belief in technology, progress and limitless growth that is almost unimaginable today.
Dahinden himself was a pioneer. He was intensively involved with mobile megastructures and similar avant-garde utopias of the early 1960s. Characterized by a dominant, garish colour scheme, typographic elements of pop art and symbolic motifs, his Munich design speaks the language of provocative pop architecture. However, even if the colorful bunker was not lacking in chic boutiques, a beer garden under oak trees, a huge wellness area or an ice skating rink, the Schwabylon came to an abrupt end after just six years of operation: not least because of its unfavorable location in the north of Schwabing, its poorly lit interior and the lack of well-heeled guests, the excavators rolled in as early as 1979 and razed the Schwabylon to the ground. For the press, the building quickly proved to be a “spotted woodpecker that didn’t want to lay any golden eggs”.
Visionary Justus Dahinden
Even if the scandal-ridden pop building could not manage the balancing act between visionary avant-gardism and its creators’ pursuit of profit, Dahinden’s Schwabylon is a wonderful example of experimental future thinking that is often lacking today. Even now, the Munich building can serve as a creative role model. Because where the unthinkable is thought of and courageous minds come together, visions of the future of a vibrant city can be created. Because a utopia is not from the outset a pipe dream that dissolves into nothingness. Unless, to put it in the words of Bert Brecht: “What will remain of all those dream and nightmare cities is what passed through them, the wind.”
Another project built by Justus Dahinden in Schwabing is the Tantris restaurant. Unlike the Schwabylon, however, the success story continues. You can read more about the architecture completed in 1971 and its history in the book TANTRIS.
You can find out more about architecture in Munich and Bavaria in B4/18.
