The Olympic area was an architectural model when it was created, and it still has an avant-garde effect today. A total of 600 architects and engineers were involved in the planning, and 25,000 employees implemented the plans. On the occasion of the 50th Olympic anniversary, the photographer Ines Jenewein captured the overall work of art in the Olympic area in the illustrated book “Olympiapark Munich”. In addition to the avant-garde architecture of the Olympic buildings, the area was also groundbreaking in terms of landscape planning. The new, minimalistic illustrated book “Green” is dedicated to the planner of the Olympic Park, Günther Grzimek: With interesting details about the history of the Olympic Park, Grzimek’s largest project.
The volume realizes an idea by Grzimek that he was no longer able to implement himself. Together with the graphic artist Otl Aicher he wanted to write a monograph on the various phases of his life and work. The outline of the book was still in development. Regine Keller received the design from her predecessor at the Chair of Landscape Architecture at the Technical University of Munich, Christoph Valentien. In exchange with people close to Grzimek, the illustrated book that has now appeared tries to complete what Grzimek had in mind. Keller starts the work with a short biography of Günther Grzimek: he dropped out of school to do an apprenticeship as a gardener in Berlin’s Tiergarten, and he later took his Abitur. Then he studied garden design. He fled to Ulm during the Second World War. He works there as a planner and also as a lecturer at the adult education center in Ulm. Then he goes to the University of Fine Arts in Kassel and finally to the Technical University of Munich.
Usability instead of representation, that’s how the Olympic Park should be.
(Photo: Regine Keller / Hirmer Verlag)
Grzimek started his large-scale Olympic Park project in Munich in 1968: Keller describes Grzimek’s inspiration for the facility and its implementation. A small Allgäu foothills of the Alps in the middle of the city: Quick and easy to reach for everyone who doesn’t often make it out of the city. Keller clearly works out Grzimek’s democratic spirit: For a long time, the princes were the main clients for landscape designers in Germany. The garden culture had developed accordingly: representation was in the foreground, not usability.
Grzimek freed himself from this influence. He wanted to create places that were accessible to all and served all. Places that could be used without too much caution and regulations, “as hard-wearing as a good commodity,” he is said to have said. They shouldn’t require too much care and should be ecologically sensible. Grzimek almost exclusively planted native plants. So he planted hardy flower meadows in the Olympic Park instead of beds and ornamental bushes. Marguerites and clover bloom on the Olympic hills, “cheap” flowers that can also be picked, according to Grzimek. However, green spaces should not only be of benefit to everyone, Grzimek believed that everyone should also be able to have a say in what is laid out and where: For many years he has campaigned for greater citizen participation in the landscaping planning of their cities, but particularly with his publication ” Taking possession of the turf”.
The volume also describes in great detail the other activities of the tireless planner Grzimek: the new botanical garden in Marburg or a green space plan for the entire city of Darmstadt and other major projects. Grzimek’s constant concern not only to create something aesthetic, but also to serve a social purpose, to create “social free spaces” in which the role of the individual in society should not play a role for a while, he also conveyed in the context of several exhibitions. It was a central message in his teaching. All this is clearly described in the book and illustrated with many selected photos and sketches. Reading leaves a strong impression of Grzimek’s vision of a “democratic green” – the title of his exhibition at the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in 1983. Of places to relax for everyone.
“Green”. Edited by Regine Keller, Hirmer Verlag, Munich 2022, 216 pages, 39.90 euros