It’s drizzling in the Olympic Park this Friday afternoon. But that doesn’t stop a few recreational athletes from digging in the sand on the beach volleyball courts. The guests who came to the inauguration of the Olympic rings on the roof of the Small Olympic Hall prefer to stay dry. Only after various speeches did the dignitaries step outside for the unveiling, led by Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). With this act, the celebrations for the anniversary of the Olympic Games in Munich in 1972 pick up speed.
IOC boss Bach raves about the symbolic power of the rings, but to be on the safe side he doesn’t say why they don’t shine in Munich in the well-known colors, but only in a stainless steel version. In addition to blue, green and yellow, the five rings also include black and red – the two colors that the late Otl Aicher, head of design for the 1972 Games, had excluded from all Olympic venues at the time. Black and red were the dominant colors at the Nazi games in 1936, and in 1972 Munich deliberately wanted to distance itself from them. And the ban on these two colors from the Olympic Park still applies today.
It’s a complicated thing with the colors and the Munich games. On the one hand, monument protection ensures that everything in the Olympic Park, which has been under ensemble protection since 1998, remains as the chief designer Aicher once conceived it. On the other hand, the IOC claims the rights to the colors developed by Aicher for itself and its marketing purposes. Especially in the anniversary year, this is a challenge for any remembrance work, as the curators of the exhibition “Munich 72 – Olympic Trace Search” have learned, which can be seen in public places in the city from Friday until December 31st.
Such information pillars are now located at 24 selected locations in the city and commemorate the 1972 games.
(Photo: beschilden.de)
At 24 selected locations, the leading city museum commemorates the happenings and events that have to do with the Olympics. The stories are described on steles, and the paint on these steles immediately evokes associations with Aicher’s color scheme for the Olympics, with the light blue, yellow and orange of the 1972 games. However, the colors of the steles are “only based on Aicher”, explains the curator Henning Rader, “they are not the originals”. The IOC keeps them carefully in its vault and only gives them out for a fee.
Traces of the games can now be discovered in the city center and of course in the Olympic Park, but also in the English Garden and at the Nymphenburg Palace, on the Theresienhöhe and in the Kapuzinerhölzl. “We didn’t just want to go to well-known places,” says co-curator Antonia Voit, “but also to evoke unknown or forgotten places.” For example the old mint in Pfisterstraße, where the medals were once minted, which were then hung around the top three winners.
“The games changed the city significantly, they were a turning point,” says Frauke von der Haar, director of the city museum. “They were far more than sporting excellence,” adds Rader. And Voit adds: “They were also a turning point in idealistic and social terms.” They promoted future ideas and accelerated the modernization of Munich. “A modernization in fast motion,” as Rader thinks.
If people can’t go to the museum, the museum will come to them
Accordingly, the employees of the city museum have come up with a modern form of presentation for the Olympic anniversary – a “decentralized special exhibition”, as Frauke von der Haar calls this premiere for her house. Because the museum was originally supposed to be closed at that time due to the planned general renovation, they had to come up with something else to convey to the people of Munich how far-reaching the influence of those games was. The basic idea: if people can’t go to the museum, the museum will come to them on the street. In the meantime, the general renovation has been postponed, but the exhibition concept has remained. “We definitely wanted to implement the attempt to go into the urban space,” says Frauke von der Haar. The curators are now curious how their idea will be received; they want to “evaluate how the offer is used,” says Henning Rader.
The investigation of usage can actually be accomplished, because in addition to a short text, there is also a QR code attached to all pillars, which can be scanned with a smartphone and leads to further information. If you want, you can “dive deeper into that time,” says Antonia Voit. In the depths of the digital part of the exhibition you can find a lot of image and video material, including interviews with contemporary witnesses in various functions. But you can also explore what the Oberwiesenfeld once looked like and how it then developed into the Olympic Park.
For those who want to get more information at one of the 24 stations, the steles are designed as seating furniture on which you can sit down for a few minutes. Henning Rader believes that the length of time spent at the individual objects will be “like in a museum”: “For some, the explanations next to the works of art are too long, they immediately move on. But for some they are too short.” You want to provide them with the additional information. “For those who are not so digital,” says Frauke von der Haar, “there will also be a booklet available free of charge from July 9 at the Stadtmuseum ticket office.”
The numbering of the individual stations resulted from the basic thematic order of this booklet. “It’s not a chronology that you have to work through,” says Rader. The tour does not have to be completed in one day like a museum where you pay admission. Due to the exhibition in public space, the search for clues can be interrupted and continued at any time.
The program of the festival of games, sports and arts in the Olympic Park:
opening program
2 July, from 10.30 a.m.: Big parade from the Alte Pinakothek in the Kunstareal through the city to the Olympiapark. Route: Kunstareal – Gabelsbergerstraße – Schleißheimer Straße – Elisabethstraße – Schwere-Reiter-Straße – Olympiapark – Coubertinplatz/Olympiasee.
12 p.m. to 6 p.m.: A colorful program on the Olympiasee stage, including the Munich Giant Mountains traditional costume group, the GMN Dance Club, Morisco dancers from the TU University Sports, The Culture Artists, Emerals Dancers and a symphonic wind orchestra.
Munich sports games 22
The best Munich residents will be determined in six Olympic sports and at various locations – in tug-of-war, swimming, tennis, beach volleyball, skateboarding and three-on-three basketball.
competition program
July 2, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m: preliminary competitions.
14 o’clock: Swimming finals.
July 3, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.: competitions
14 o’clock: German championships in tug of war
3pm: Best Trick Skateboard
Free participation program
July 2 and 3, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m: ZHS tennis facility, roof of the Small Olympic Hall, Willi-Daume-Platz (Sea Life), peninsula, Willi-Gebhardt-Ufer
Artistic program
July 2, 9 p.m.: Richard Siegal/Ballet of Difference (dance spectacle)
July 3, 4:30 p.m.: Olympic drums (concert)
July 4, 6 p.m.: Tam Tam (walk and performance)
5th/6th/7th July, 5 p.m.: Club of jubilees (three utopias, followed by a concert and DJ program)
July 8, 4 p.m.: Inside the 1972 Boxing Ring (dance performance)
July 9, 5 p.m.: Setting Dystopia (stage program with video show and music).
Further information: www.muenchen1972-2022.de/festival-spiel-sport-kunst