every little thing starts somewhere

I was about to go to bed. So I turned off my TV after watching bits of Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia 1 & 2 (Festival of the nations & Festival of beauty). It's the artistic documentary on the 1936 Olympic Games held in Germany - games used back then as nazi propaganda, but that is not the point of this post.

Some years ago, Rammstein covered Depeche Mode's Stripped (I love both versions) and the video is made out of footage from those documentaries.

My favorite part of the video, around 2/3rds of its run, is the diving competition and the way some of the jumps were filmed. The ones in reverse are particularly beautiful, they just look SOOOO GOOD - I thought back then that those were the video producer's work. But no, the whole video is 100% untouched footage of that 50+ year old docu.

I regret not having searched for more of Leni's work previously because I want to watch more of it now. She was supposedly not connected to the party, she just happened to be a very good artist whose qualities were then used for their purpose.

Munich, in its turn has the Olympiapark, where the 1972 Summer Olympics were held, games that became infamous after a Palestinian group took the Israeli olympic team hostage - Munich (2005) supposedly portraits the events, another movie I promised myself I would watch... 3 years ago:P

The structure still exists, it's a cob-web-like plexy-glass and steel structure. It's supposedly the olympic (infra-)structure surviving and being used the longest after its original purpose. Both Munich soccer teams (FC Bayern München and TSV 1860 München) had it as their home but were happy to get their own stadium (the actual Allianz Arena) as it was not the most comfortable sport arena when weather was not favorable. That also seems to reflect on every other activity to be held there, because they now do not know what to do with the structure and it is not generating income to keep its maintenance going.

My curiosity for these two specific Olympics started with an article about what is there to be done with the now so old Olympiapark, also called "Oly" by its friends.

The construction's design symbolizes lightness vs. the heavy monolithic arena of the 1936 games. Its shape harmonizes with the surrounding green hills and even the seats are in 2 or 3 shades of green, pushing the landscape integration another notch. It is a particular place to appreciate for its symbolism, architecture and engineering milestone!

It is just too bad that it's not the landmark it used to be - visitors now go to the Allianz Arena (the more modern architecture and sport icon - thanks to Herzog & de Meuron) and I can only predict that they will bring the structure down... one day... probably to build a carpark, office buildings or extend BMW's nearby factory:P

What goes around comes around. The Beijing Olympic Games are also proving to be a political issue, I mean, the incidents between China and Tibet are. Now the safe passage of the Olympic torch relay is not guaranteed in some places. So I read that the Olympic torch relay as we know it nowadays, initially based on an antic Greek myth, has actually been "fine-tuned" for the 1936 games.

What started as the appreciation of architecture and design, moved on to a history lesson and then to the further appreciation of photo and video art. As a matter a fact, I will be in Berlin to visit a friend of mine, a video installation artist. All of this is just the right inspiration and a good oportunity to take some good old film B&W shots.

n.-

P.S. While I host people, I supply information about the city and slowly all those little tidbits are included. Is that the career of a tour guide growing in me?... Naaaaaa, I don't think so! :) The truth is, I know more about this city than any other I ever lived in.

P.P.S. By the way, the Berlin Stadium still exists, it was renewed in 2004 according to this and was the stage of the 2006 World Cup final (besides other games too).