Abstract

The Olympic Games are a major media event that draws attention all over the world. This tremendous media coverage gives the host country in particular the opportunity to introduce itself to a global audience and at the same time to transport a national identity as well as a political statement. This article shows, by analysing the architecture of the Olympic Games in Rome (1960) and Munich (1972), how a political statement can be transported by sports facilities. This kind of view assumes an understanding of politics, which not only includes political action in general. Item cultural events can be used as an object of investigation for analysing a political self-conception. In this way the article points out the function of sports facilities besides the capacity as a place for competition. The 'new political history', which develops in combination with the 'cultural history', argues that symbolism is a mode of communication that gives access to the sociopolitics of the past. The article elaborates the different factors which impact on the meaning of a symbol and points out the different opportunities for interpretation. According to Umberto Eco, the article understands the stadium as a sign that is turned, primarily by media and social interpreting, into an architectural symbol. In a last step it takes this interpretation in a broader context to define a political statement of Italy and Germany at the respective time.