Jenny runs through the rain. She looks left and right in search of her mistress. The Golden Retriever lady probably sat longingly in front of a sausage stand for too long when the downpour broke and Maria Haimerl sought protection from the lashing rain masses alone under the arches of the Siegestor. But Jenny finds Maria Haimerl a little later and shakes herself first. “I was here often during my studies,” says the woman, who now lives in the countryside near Landsberg. “It’s great when Leopoldstrasse and Ludwigstrasse are closed to traffic for almost two days.” The Corso Leopold north of the Siegestor has actually existed on two weekends a year for more than two decades, and the idea for a car-free promenade on the traffic corridor even dates back to 1994. The Streetlife Festival started in 2002, the year the Munich environmental organization Green withdrew town back. Now there is a new start south of the Victory Gate: the Zamanand.
The climate lounge wanders through the city
Christine Kugler is sitting on a comfortable sofa in a wooden lounge on Professor-Huber-Platz. “The climate lounge will be a permanent facility,” says the climate and environmental protection officer. After the Zamanand Festival, the small wooden building will be making stops in all districts of the city for about a month. Here people can talk to the experts of the municipal department. It should be about energy advice in households, but also about thermal insulation and climate-neutral buildings. “Re:think” is the name of the successor to “Cool City”, which wanted to advertise with a huge blue “C” on squares that the people of Munich are more committed to climate and environmental protection. “It was just an image campaign,” says Kugler, “and a bit listless.” Kugler and her team now want to motivate people in Munich more so that the city becomes climate-neutral as quickly as possible. “No one said it would be easy,” she says.
The weather was rather unpleasant, but the streets were full.
There are steles in front of the lounge that illustrate what the new approach of “Re:think” is all about: for example, heating and cooling without using fossil fuels and only with electricity generated in a climate-friendly manner. With a so-called sponge city, in which as much rainwater as possible can be stored on green house roofs, in green areas or in water-permeable roadways, the city and its citizens could relatively easily adapt to the climate with extremely hot summer months. But there is still a long way to go until then. Manuel Schaumann knows that too. The Zamanand organizer stands in front of the climate lounge with a radio and says: “Of course not everything is perfect here. But we try to offer something vegan everywhere.” That’s why there were “contradictions” at the beginning of the restart for the festival in Ludwigstrasse, which he had previously organized as event manager for Streetlife at Green City.
Zamanand is more airy than street life used to be
In fact, sausages in particular are sizzling on the temporary promenade this weekend, sometimes there are also oriental items, but above all alcohol at the stands. What is striking is that Zamanand is not as crammed with stalls and attractions as street life used to be. There is often plenty of space between the stands, the Siegestor, where Green City had heaped up a beach in recent years and equipped it with palm trees and deck chairs, has now become a traffic island again. North of it, on the Corso Leopold, the number of stalls increases significantly, first with the stands of the democratic parties and charitable institutions that advertise their work. In between there are always small stages like the “Lederhosnbühne”, two soccer fields on which the club “bunt kickt gut” contests tournaments with international players.
The musicians sing at the back of the Münchner Freiheit Big S at the end of their concert “Love is on the run” by moody blues. It reads: “Just because it’s raining here doesn’t mean the sun isn’t shining.” A sunny motto for this weekend’s rainy street festivals between Odeonsplatz and Münchner Freiheit. And the organizers were right: around 150,000 visitors came to the Zamanand alone by Sunday evening, together with the Corso there were probably more than 300,000 people who enjoyed the car-free street.