Today is a sad day. They started to tear down the olympic student village in Munich. This village has survived for 35 years and now its end has come.

Tourists loved to walk through the green and colourful little bungalow area as well as the inhabitants of the larger olympic village, a little town of its own within the city of Munich.

35 years of winters and summers have left their tracks on walls and roofs - it was time to renew. The costs for the renewals would have been through the roof so the city administration decided to tear the whole area down and rebuild it. This was a requirement because the whole olympic village is under order of preservation. What a shame for BMW - they would have loved to confiscate the whole area for their own plans - because BMW rules the city of Munich. Alas - preservation rules come first.

There will be a new student village. Supposed to be occupied by another generation of students again mainly from foreign countries and surely adding to a climate of a wonderful mixture of different cultures, which always adds to the openess and tolerance of a city and country, it will not be the same.

The charm of the old village will be gone. All the overwhelming green jungle will be gone, the wonderful old cherry trees which were blooming so beautifully each spring are gone and dead - only a pile of dead wood and dry leaves is currently left and waiting for transportation to the chaffcutter, all the wild rose bushes will be gone and the vegetables that grew in front of some of the bungalows. All the painted walls will be gone and I doubt that another generation of wall art will be tolerated.

Yes - I am sad. But I grabbed my camera and walked through the narrow paths a last time and took some memories on chip card at least before the building fences are coming and the bulldozers:

(click on the first image - will lead you to much more on my website)

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The last photo is the view from a little hill south of the olympic village towards the roofs of the olympic student village - all these trees will be gone soon…

© 2007 Petra Voegtle
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