Munich Forum

Logo of the Munich forum

The Münchner Forum eV is a non-profit association in Munich that advocates citizen participation in Munich urban planning .

Club structure

The Munich Forum has around 100 members, including the Chamber of Industry and Commerce for Munich and Upper Bavaria , the Chamber of Crafts for Munich and Upper Bavaria , the Munich newspaper publishers and the DGB, the chairs for geography and urban planning of the Munich universities, professional associations and the churches are represented. In addition, Munich companies and politicians are members, planning offices, architects, private individuals and the city of Munich. In order to separate the political actors from the practical work, this is not organized by the executive board, but the program committee annually decides on the content of the Munich Forum. The members are involved in working groups on current urban development issues in and around Munich. The results are then published in the form of events, the digital magazine "Standpunkte", via social media (homepage, Facebook, Twitter, mucbook) and radio. In the office, employees work in all areas of organization, administration and content support.

The chairman of the association is (as of 2019) the architect Udo Bünnagel, the program committee is headed by Detlev Sträter, sociologist and urban planner at the Technical University of Munich, and Klaus Bäumler, retired administrative judge .

The association is financed from membership fees, but mainly through a grant from the city of Munich amounting to around 100,000 euros per year.

history

The Altstadtringtunnel directly under the historic Prinz-Carl-Palais

After the completion of the immediate reconstruction of the city after the Second World War, the new, young Lord Mayor Hans-Jochen Vogel initiated a major planning process for the further development of Munich from 1960 onwards. This resulted in the 1963 urban development plan, which represented the concept of “car-friendly city” in the area of ​​transport. For the construction of the Altstadtring as part of the building, rows of buildings were demolished and in 1967 the Prinz-Carl-Palais , at that time the official residence of the Bavarian Prime Minister , was tunneled under. Resistance to the construction work and further plans arose in specialist circles among architects and students of building sciences. With the consent of the city, critics founded an editorial office for the Munich Bauforum under the roof of the municipal building center , which developed events and publications on urban planning.

After conflicts with the city administration and the end of the cooperation with the building center, the critics founded the association Münchner Bauforum. Here the city plans were analyzed in public discussions and alternatives were presented.

In the course of the implementation of the plans, Mayor Vogel recognized that the criticism of the citizens and external experts of the work of the city administration was justified. In his review of his tenure as mayor, he wrote in 1972: "I will never again sign an administration plan that has not been publicly discussed beforehand."

Vogel suggested putting the work of the association on an institutional basis and on April 4, 1968, various chambers, associations and trade unions, among others, set up the Munich discussion forum for urban development issues, which in 1972 was named Münchner Forum (discussion forum for Development Issues eV) was registered as a non-profit association.

Since then, the Munich Forum has played a key role in Munich's urban planning. In its first years it worked out an alternative plan for the Lehel , which was heavily affected by the traffic planning for the expansion of the old town ring. The plans of the Munich Forum led to the Lehel being rededicated from the core area to a residential area in accordance with the urban development plan in 1971 . Among the successes of the association include the preservation of Seidlvilla and transformation as a community center with a predominantly cultural events, the rescheduling of the Elisabeth square , the reduction of the structure of the Bavarian State Chancellery in Hofgarten , the absence of a continuous Isar Mainline , the prevention of planned interventions in the Olympiastadion , influence in the design of the old courtyard and contributions to the discussion about high-rise buildings in Munich. Other topics were client speculation, luxury renovation and tree protection . With the Working Group on Attractive Local Transport , the Munich Forum was involved in maintaining the Munich tram, despite the decision to shut it down.

In addition, the association was and is active in the planning of new city districts, whereby it has always advocated small-scale structures in human dimensions.

Twice, the association's municipal grant was cut to such an extent that professional work was no longer possible and the work fell back on purely voluntary work. Under the SPD Mayor Georg Kronawitter and his CSU successor Erich Kiesl . In both cases budgetary reasons were mentioned, even though the city was in good financial shape at these times. Co-founder and then actor Karl Klühspies speaks of the “insubordination” of the association as the real reason for the funding cuts.

aims

The association forms the interface between civic engagement and the interests of the city (administration and politics) with regard to urban development issues. “The Munich Forum is the citizen's advocate and a 'mouthpiece' between the city and the public”. With a focus on citizen participation , the Munich Forum develops socially relevant urban development issues in projects, events and in the media .

activities

The practical work of the association takes place through working groups. These give themselves a work program.

• The working group City: Shape and Living Space deals with the internal development and consolidation of existing buildings through the development of binding quality standards. For this purpose, the development processes of long-term settlement development in Munich are observed and the participation and planning culture is monitored.
• The working group Who rules the city? deals with precisely this core question and looks for the formative forces of the city. Planning activities and the design of urban living space in Munich, as well as strategic planning projects and the possible reform of municipal land management are the main topics here.
• The aim of the Young Forum working group is to win young people as potential members for the Munich Forum.
• The event series STADTfragen regularly deals with current issues from society, culture and urban development, which are presented by speakers and then discussed.
• In the urban land use planning working group , current building projects and development plans in the Munich area are critically examined and alternatives are developed
• The concern of the Olympia working group is the development of the Olympic Park and the Olympic site.
• The Working Group on Attractive Local Transport to Improve Local Public Transport in Munich is integrated into the structures of the Munich Forum.
• The question, of which the development of the city since about 1990 has been determined and is dealt the working group downtown .

Other working groups deal with topics such as noise reduction, the renaturation of the Isar floodplains ( Isar Plan ), future-oriented solutions for the main S-Bahn line and current events.

media

The online magazine "Standpunkte" appears monthly on the association's homepage. In addition, the Munich Forum goes on air once a month at Radio Lora with Forum aktuell .

literature

• Münchner Forum (Ed.): 25 years of the Munich Forum . 1993
• Karl Klühspies: Munich not as planned . Franz Schiermeier Verlag 2015, ISBN 978-3-943866-25-4

Web links

• Official homepage of the Munich Forum
• Current issue of the online magazine "Standpunkte"
• Official homepage of the Junge Forum

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Munich Forum: Articles of Association (as of October 6, 2014; PDF; 110 kB)
2. ↑ Munich Forum: Program Committee elects new board and sets its priorities for 2015 ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ Süddeutsche Zeitung: Without Coercion to Consensus , December 19, 2008, p. 42
4. ^ Karl Klühspies: Munich not as planned. Franz Schiermeier Verlag, 2015, ISBN 978-3-943866-25-4 .
5. ↑ Hans-Jochen Vogel: Die Amtskette , 1972. Quoted from: Münchner Forum (Hrsg.): 25 Jahre Münchner Forum , 1993, p. 10
6. ^ Lutz Hoffmann: Experiences of the Munich city administration with the Munich forum . In: Münchner Forum (Ed.): 25 Years of the Münchner Forum , 1993, pp. 45–48
7. ↑ Munich Forum: Much has been done ( Memento of the original from December 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
8. ↑ ^{a b} Martin Heusinger: conversation with Karl Klühspies . In: Münchner Forum (Ed.): 25 Years of the Münchner Forum , 1993, pp. 27–35
9. ↑ Dieter Horst: Must you maybe leave the tram ois gfoin? In: Münchner Forum (Hrsg.): 25 Jahre Münchner Forum , 1993, pp. 76–80
10. ↑ Ursula Ammermann in: Standpunkte 16/2008, p. 24
11. ↑ Münchner Forum: Work program ( Memento of the original from May 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.