© Christian Kandzia
The main venue of the summer Olympic Games in Munich in 1972 is the “Oberwiesenfeld”. The central arenas comprise the Olympic Stadium, the sports hall and the swimming hall. The facilities and buildings belonging to the core area were to be laid out and executed as part of an overall concept for a “designed landscape”. In order to implement these concepts, an area in the north-west of the city was made available. The salient features of the site included a landscaped hill formed from the rubble of the Second World War, the television tower and the Nymphenburg Canal, which were to form the starting point for the design of an “Olympic landscape”. The striking, three-dimensional topography of the landscaped hill was extended in the form of mounds and embankments, so that the flat site was articulated into a series of comprehensible areas. The layout of the footpaths on the elevated ground, removed from vehicular traffic routes, affords pedestrians varied views into and out of the lower-lying areas. All mounds and embankments converge in the central plateau around which the sporting arenas are laid out. Despite the large dimensions of the stadiums, it was possible to reduce their great mass by embedding them in the landscape. As a result of the unity achieved between construction, plantings and topography, the built structures have a human scale. The stadium and the sports hall are single-tier arenas in which everyone can see everyone else. This form of stand was designed to stress the common experience of the sporting events. Internal and external space in the stadiums are linked.