Olympiapark, Olympic park in Milbertshofen-Am Hart, Munich, Germany
Olympiapark is an Olympic park on the Oberwiesenfeld in Munich's Milbertshofen-Am Hart district, built for the 1972 Summer Olympics. Its centrepiece is the Olympic Tower, a slender light-grey concrete shaft ringed near the top by three stacked platforms, the lowest widest, above which a tapered section rises into a thin spire with a red-and-white antenna mast. The tensile roof designed by Frei Otto and Günter Behnisch covers the stadium and halls with grey-white fabric sections held taut by steel struts and cables over a paved plaza, with the Olympic Hill and Olympic Lake to the south.
A military airfield occupied the land until the late 1960s when Munich was awarded the 1972 Summer Olympics and the site was transformed. After the Games ended the complex remained in use and became a permanent part of the city's landscape.
The name Olympiapark came from the U-Bahn station named on 3 November 1969, chosen to echo the "green Olympic Games" theme, and it soon spread to the whole area. The park includes a contemporary carillon, and its grounds host cultural, social and religious events, including worship services.
The park grounds are freely accessible every day and suit both active sports and leisurely walks, while individual facilities such as the pool or event venues have their own admission rules. The Olympic Tower requires a ticket for its observation deck and the large site rewards visitors willing to explore several zones in a single trip.
The tent roof construction over the stadium was the first to use cable nets instead of solid beams at such a scale, opening new possibilities in structural engineering. The roof surface lets daylight filter through and changes the mood inside depending on weather and time of day.
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