Almost 50 years ago, when rumors about a relocation of the Munich Exhibition Center were circulating in the city, the Mayor at the time, Georg Kronawitter, put his foot down. In the city council’s economic committee, the SPD politician raged: “The discussion about the relocation of the exhibition center must now finally be over. Such plans are “completely unrealistic and far too expensive” – an assessment for which Kronawitter even received demonstrative applause from the CSU parliamentary group, which was actually as well-disposed towards him as Hubert Aiwanger is towards High German today. But when it came to the trade fair, everyone agreed: the location on the Theresienhöhe will not be changed.
It was there, 25 years later, that Monika Dech packed the last documents and utensils in moving boxes in her office. At the time, she was the project manager of the CBR (Caravan, Boat and Travel) at the Munich Exhibition Center – the event that was to be the first to take place at the new location in Riem. “Back then, we packed our things on a Friday, and we started working in the new offices on Monday,” says Dech.
Although she and her team still used shovels and brooms there at the weekend. “It was a stressful time, we had a lot to do,” recalls Dech, who has worked at the trade fair since 1990 and to this day. “But the anticipation and the great team spirit outweighed everyone.” After all, she is still convinced today: “In my opinion, the most beautiful and functional exhibition center in the world was created in Riem.”
This was opened on February 12, 1998 – 25 years ago on this Sunday. At the ceremony in Hall B1, 5,000 guests attended, including Prime Minister Edmund Stoiber (CSU), Lord Mayor Christian Ude (SPD) and Federal President Roman Herzog (CSU), who coined the phrase “laptop and lederhosen” for the first time in his speech – later many times used metaphor.
Monika Dech missed Herzog’s speech as well as the entire opening ceremony. After all, she was fully occupied with the final preparations for the CBR, which started two days later – parallel to a nine-day “fair opening”. At that time, 300,000 people flocked to the site of the former Riem Airport. The fact that one was able to build there on free space was an “opportunity of the century” for the Munich trade fair, say its current managing directors Reinhard Pfeiffer and Stefan Rummel. Because the company was only able to develop into “one of the most modern, most attractive and largest trade fair companies in the world” at this larger location.
Monika Dech took part in the move from Theresienhöhe to Riem.
(Photo: Munich Trade Fair)
In the years and decades after the mayor’s word of power, it also dawned on Munich’s city politicians that it would be necessary to move the trade fair center from the Theresienhöhe. And yet the road to the largest construction project since the 1972 Olympic Games was long and arduous. When it was clear in the mid-1980s that Munich would get a new airport, the trade fair’s plans to relocate increasingly revolved around the vacant site in Riem. In 1987, a majority in the city council – against the votes of the Greens – made a fundamental resolution: Messestadt Riem, a new district for 16,000 inhabitants, was to be built on the 556-hectare site of the former airport. And: a new exhibition center.
The exhibition center was not completed until 2018
With this decision, the debate about the move was not over. Above all, the poker game between the Free State and the city had the effect of delaying the financial participation in the large-scale project. Both sides did not agree until the end of 1992, with the city paying its contribution mainly from the sale of its shares in the airport. The first construction phase of the exhibition center should cost 2.3 billion euros. In fact, it then became – and that is an unmistakable sign that we are talking about times long past – even a little cheaper. The trade fair was then able to use the remaining funds to build two more halls and a multi-storey car park. However, the site was not completed until 2018 – with the construction of Halls C5 and C6 and the Conference Center North.
“At the time, the trade fair at the Theresienhöhe was bursting at the seams,” recalls Monika Dech. The halls of different sizes and heights as well as the complicated logistics were a challenge at events. In addition, the employees of the trade fair were distributed in several buildings on the exhibition grounds. All of that was a thing of the past with the move to Riem.
There, generous planning was possible on the extensive site: based on the drafts by the architects Kaup, Scholz & Partner with the engineering company Obermeyer, an imposing hall landscape with 13 halls and 140,000 square meters of exhibition space was created in a three-and-a-half year construction period – today there are 18 halls and 200,000 square meters . A fixed point on the site was and is the 2.6 hectare exhibition lake at the western entrance. “If, for example, at an Expo Real visitors are sitting in a deck chair in the green atrium or are at the exhibition lake, then that is something unique,” says Dech. “The entire site is very green, the paths are extremely short. I am convinced that you would build the same thing again today.”
Two days after the opening ceremony, the first trade fair in Riem, the CBR, took place in 1998.
(Photo: Munich Trade Fair)
After the move in 1998, the trade fair ran a double operation on the Theresienhöhe and in Riem for six months before concentrating fully on the new location. There, shortly after the opening ceremony, the CBR started, which went smoothly at the time, says Dech. The guests still had to come to the site with shuttle buses, since the subway connection to the trade fair was only completed a few months after it opened. The reason for the delay was the Trudering bus accident in 1994, when a bus crashed into an eight meter deep crater and three people died – the worst accident in the history of Munich subway construction.
After the CBR, more than 900 events took place on the new exhibition center in 25 years. In Riem, Messe München grew continuously and soon expanded internationally. The company also experienced its hardest times there, when it made high losses in the Corona years 2020 and 2021 and cut staff on a large scale.
In the meantime, however, Messe München GmbH, whose shareholders are the Free State, the City of Munich, the IHK and the Chamber of Crafts for Munich and Upper Bavaria, sees itself on the rise again. However, a big celebration to mark the 25th anniversary of the move to Riem is not planned. Instead, the celebrations will be in 2024, when Messe München will be 60 years old.