Archive Newsletter No. 6.2

March 2019

The exhibition Die Utopie des Designs (The Utopia of Design) focused its attention on the Munich Olympic Park, which was created in the course of the 1972 Olympic Games. The realization of such an extensive, holistic, and integrative large-scale project for the Summer Games and beyond went down in history as the "utopia of modernity" [1]. Hardly any other sports event had been associated with a comparable design effort. Architecture, design, landscape architecture, and corporate design intermeshed admirably and created a homogeneous image of the games, which set a new course within the disciplines. Otl Aicher, Günther Behnisch, Frei Otto, Werner Wirsing, Jürgen Eckert, Günther Domenig/Eilfried Huth and Hans Hollein were the main creative players in the Olympic Park project. The exhibition at Kunstverein München also highlighted critical aspects of the project, which had been thought through on all levels.

The awarding of the Olympic Games to the city of Munich on 26 April 1966 established the first major German event in post-war Germany. The preparation for this took on unexpected dimensions, as not only was it necessary to create a counter image to the Berlin Games of 1936, which were burnt into the collective memory, but Munich also had neither the necessary sports facilities nor a sufficient infrastructure to do the event justice. Hans- Jochen Vogel [2] , the mayor of Munich at the time, brought this problem before the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and it turned out that the construction of new stadiums was welcomed.

The Munich Urban Development Plan, which was approved in 1963 as a response to population growth among other things [3], partly merged with the plans for the Olympic site from 1966 onwards. This caused Munich to undergo a drastic urban change, which also resulted in an increase in the price of centrally located residential space. "Compared to other major German cities, modernization in Munich began rather late, yet with all the more commitment" [4]: The underground and suburban railway networks were extensively expanded, the Marienplatz and Olympiapark railway stations were rebuilt, the Altstadtring and the Mittlere Ring were created, and the 300-hectare Oberwiesenfeld was developed for the construction of the Olympic Park. This urban transition of the city was documented in the exhibition by means of architectural models, for example of the U-Bahn and S-Bahn station Marienplatz, and through a comparison and contrast of various city plans of Munich, a study of Richard J. Dietrich’s ‚megacity‘ concept, and an examination into the formation of Neuperlach out of the overflowing city Perlach. A Reader of the same name was published as a folder and presented as an „archaeological guide for everyone who were not there“ [5]. It was subdivided into ten chapters and further developed the topics touched on later on in the 1994 Kunstverein München exhibition Die Utopie des Designs, equally covering local and international utopic concepts in an attempt to do the complex subject matter justice.

Therefore, the Games were a source of enormous pressure for the BRD and for the city of Munich, and not only administratively. They were demanding in every way. The German-German rivalry also came into play because one of the conditions of the IOC for hosting the games in Germany was to allow the GDR to participate with its own national team. The assassination of Israeli athletes and a West German police officer in the Olympic village by the secular nationalist Palestinian terrorist group 'Black September' finally overshadowed the "cheerful, non-political" [6] games and brought a quick end to the utopia.

"Cheerful, light, dynamic, apolitical, unpathetic, free of ideology and a playful mutual influencing of sport and culture" [7] were the key words that defined the decisive guideline for the implementation of the games in a handbook of the IOC published as early as 1969 and thus set a clear direction for those involved in construction.
An integrative and participative concept required a sustainable use of the newly created open space and its new buildings. For example, the Studentenwerk had been considering the Oberwiesenfeld as a building site for a student residence complex since 1961. The present student village was used to house sportswomen during the Games. It is divided into four main building groups, a 19-storey high-rise building with 801 apartments, each 18.35 square metres in size, designed by Günther Eckert, the maisonette bungalows with 26.82 square metres each planned by Werner Wirsing, an additional 118 apartments in stepped construction, and the two-storey community centre. Wirsing’s priority in the design of the bungalows was the concept of individual living. This much more expensive residential model could nevertheless be realized financially with prefabricated concrete elements produced on site. The newly- designed range of fiberglass-reinforced polyester living boxes and acrylic bathrooms, which have since been produced for the market, also contributed to cutting costs. [8]

The male athletes were accommodated in another residential complex commissioned by DEBA-Wohnbau München and realized by architect Walter Hidisch as a "new housing estate without car traffic" [9]. The press city and the press centre were also available as living space after the Games, but their use was limited. After the assassinations, the Olympic Village was temporarily considered unrentable.
The cycling stadium, with space for 5,000 spectators, soon could no longer be used for its purposes due to new guidelines in track cycling. The Olympic Hall, on the other hand, was developed from the outset as a multi-purpose hall to guarantee versatile use. [10] During the Games, the indoor swimming pool was extended by another temporary stage, which was later dismantled and fitted with a generous glass façade. Provisional catering facilities for visitors were also created by the Behnisch und Partner office and the Graz architects Domenig/Huth.

The sustainable planning and the accompanying integration of the Munich population supported the image of a free, democratic and young Germany. Above all, it was the involvement of the young population that was a concern for the organizers. [11] Thus, the Olympic Games did not lose its role as an ideological staging ground.

The architect Günther Behnisch was the main responsible agent for the implementation of the Olympic Park. He won a large-scale competition with his office Behnisch und Partner and was able to face the new challenge at Oberwiesenfeld, in the north of the city, from 1966. He commissioned landscape architect Günther Grzimek [12] to design the park. Grzimek created an urban landscape which "should contribute to an atmosphere of cheerful and relaxed games and remain a post-Olympic leisure area, green space and recreation area". [13]

First, the site was developed with the construction of new roads, bridges, and the expansion of the bus, tram, and underground networks. Then, war and construction rubble was collected to create a hilly landscape with artificial waters[14]. Thus, Grzimek created a "relief energy [...] based on the redistribution of the masses. [...] One can say that the topography of the landscape is literally growing in architecture, it is its compensatory product."
[15] In the upheavals of the 1960s, Grzimek saw the necessity of changing open, public spaces. His approach was based on the "democratic green" [16] as a contemporary concept, which should develop from the "feudal park via the communal park into the casual openness of the recreational landscape" [17]. The play street project, which actively involved anonymous visitors through a varied cultural program such as street theatre and action zones, emphasized the leisurely character of the Olympic Games and underlined the park's freedom of movement. But "the play street offered a 'free space', which was controlled by a precisely prescribed program, and is thus exemplary for the conditioning of leisure behavior"[18] within a society.

With the roofing of the sports arenas, Behnisch, with the help of Prof. Frei Otto, created an integrative roof system that playfully and unobtrusively embedded itself in the park and prevented architectural hierarchy.
The sports arenas, such as the Olympic Stadium, the Olympic Hall, and the Olympic Swimming Hall, were built in depth so that only a third of the buildings protruded from the ground. "To take the ideals of democracy seriously and to try to express them in terms of construction was a common concern of Behnisch and Grzimek’s" [19]. This symbiosis of architecture, outstanding engineering, and landscape architecture is a milestone in recent German architectural history. Prof. Frei Otto, inventor of the modern tent roof, had already attracted attention with the construction of the German pavilion at the Expo 1967 with a partially similar roof construction. For Behnisch, Otto became indispensable for the realization of the point-supported suspended roof of the Olympic site. A total of 58 up to 80-meter-high pillars with a maximum diameter of 3.5 metres carry the rope net, on which 3 x 3 metre prefabricated individual sheets of plexiglass are attached.

Through its integrative function and connecting aesthetics, the roof construction matched the uniform overall image of the games, although the decisive factor was the comprehensive visual communication system designed by Otl Aicher and his team. Aicher had already made a name for himself as a co-founder of the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm [20] and is regarded as a pioneer of the visual guidance system [21]. The grid system for visual design designed by Emil Ruder [22], but also the publication “The Graphic Designer and his Design Problems”(1961) by Josef Müller-Brockmanns [23] not only influenced the teaching practice of the HfG Ulm, they also paved the way for Aicher's visual guidance system. The demand for universal, intelligent information systems grew as the frequency of international events increased.

The IOC took Aicher, who enjoyed a good reputation and maintained excellent contacts, into account for the design of the games even before they were awarded to the City of Munich. Weeks before, he had already presented an initial concept, which had been developed together with the HfG Ulm. In close collaboration with the Japanese designer Masaru Katsumie, who had already created individual pictograms for the 1964 Tokyo Games to visualize the various sports disciplines, Aicher created "an entire syntactic system that follows strict design rules. On this basis, it can still be expanded at any time or adapted to new conditions and areas of application. The difference to Tokyo was that the pictograms were now developed from a repertoire of standardized graphic elements on a grid. To this day, the rights are held by ERCO and the content is being further developed there."[24]In Munich visual forms were favored over textual information. The elaboration of the pictograms was of particular importance as they had the potential of communicating with a multilingual audience [...] Aicher developed about one hundred and eighty pictograms about sports, activities and support
services." [25] As became clear during the development, it was of course not possible to completely do without writing. Aicher chose the font Univers 55 , which he regarded as appropriate and contemporary due to its combination of clarity and dynamism. [26]
With a clear color system, Aicher designed over 100 different design areas, from orientation signs and uniforms for the security forces to entrance and parking tickets, which gave the games an unmistakeable appearance. Aicher chose light blue and silver as the basic colors, in keeping with the local Bavarian state colors. The other colors were chosen by simply turning to the color wheel. Also, the Media Lines[27]of the architect Hans Hollein fit into this color system. [28] The colors red and gold were deliberately omitted in order to avoid any association with National Socialism.
An array of print materials such as posters and flyers, as well as the aforementioned uniforms were exhibited in the first floor rooms of Kunstverein München, exemplifying their closed and easily recognizable design.

„Rejecting the massive scale of the Berlin Olympics, Aicher worked with a small number of universal and simple elements that became the building blocks of the visual identity: color, emblem, type, format, and grid. Printed matter [...] were only carriers of these distinct elements. [...] Variable design aspects were related to one another by the application of standards and binding guidelines, creating a visual identity based on relations, and not on strict conformity. [...] Unity in variety (a design concept of Neue Sachlichkeit) became a key principle for Aicher ́s Olympic work.”[29]

In addition to the applied arts, the visual arts had a difficult role to play within this interlocking symbiosis of architecture, design, and landscape architecture. Thus the "Olympic Earth Sculpture" by Walter de Maria, sculptures by the team Goeritz, Clarenbach, and Claus, and an installation by Carl Andre were rejected; while works by Otto Piene and Heinz Mack of the Zero group, and by Thomas Lenk were realized, i.e. "Works of art with a conventional character." [30]

Critical positions were taken by the artists Wolf Vostell with the silkscreen "Olympia 1972", which was based on John Heartfield's anti-fascist poster series of the 1936 Games, and Vlado Kristl, who used the backdrop of the major event for an anarchist porn film.
In reaction to the Games, Kunstverein München also hosted the exhibition Informal meeting of young European artists from the 24th to the 30th of August 1972 as a platform to explore the opportunities for art and sport in the future.
[31] This exhibition was preceeded by a another uncomfortable project, Bodyculture and sport in works of Soviet fine artists, from the 11th of July to the 13th of August of the same year. With this exhibition, the then head of administration, Haimo Liebich, used Kunstverein München as platform for a critical reflection on content once again and formulated a clear position regarding the East-West conflict in light of the Olympic Games. Walter Grasskamp clearly stated this in his essay „Competitors and Partners“: with these undertakings „the Kunstverein was [...] conflictually ahead of its time, in addition to its unnusual eastward politics leading to resentment toward the new head of administration, who maintained exhibition contacts in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic. In 1972 unceremoniously accomodated the USSR‘s inofficial Olympic Games exhibition Bodyculture and sport in works of Soviet fine artists, and invited the East and the West to the literary symposium Beyond the game.”[32]

Otl Aicher, as the main person responsible for the visual identity, expressed himself very critically in regard to the inclusion of visual art. "He imputed a formalistic and anti-participatory impetus to the visual arts within his creative approach. For him, art was an expression of escapism" [33]. In parallel with the subordinate role of the visual arts, the 1972 Olympic Games became a milestone for the applied arts and set a new course especially in the field of corporate design. In order to do justice to the scope of The Utopia of Design exhibition project, we are adding a third part to this newsletter, which will concentrate on corporate design.

Text: Christina Maria Ruederer
Research: Christina Maria Ruederer
Translation and Editing: Theresa Bauernfeind, Post Brothers and Christina Maria Ruederer

If you have any questions or suggestions please contact us via archiv@kunstverein-muenchen.de.