For example, the Optimol oil works, where lubricants were produced. After the war, the Konen clothing company was able to bundle its production sites, which had previously been spread all over Munich, here. And the Zünder-Apparatebau-Gesellschaft, better known as Zündapp, built motorcycles on the site. And then there were the dumpling production halls on the Pfanni site, today’s Werksviertel-Mitte.
Pfanni was founded in 1949 by Werner Eckart. The entrepreneurial family knew a thing or two about the food business. At the end of the 19th century, Johannes Eckart founded the first canning factory in southern Germany. Werner Eckart’s Pfanni idea of using dried potato flakes to make delicious mashed potatoes or even potato dumplings in no time at all struck a chord in Germany in the post-war period. Pfanni became a success story that lasted for decades.
In the 1980s and 1990s, however, it became apparent that the Pfanni production site, like the other production sites in the east of Munich, could no longer be maintained. The industries gradually relocated. In 1996, Pfanni’s production was relocated to Stavenhagen in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. However, the question now arose as to what would happen to the site. A new urban quarter was needed. But as a development and building plan like this is not created overnight and planning permission also takes a while, the time of interim use began in the east of Munich. And that meant: party alert!
From 1996 onwards, numerous clubs set up shop in Kunstpark Ost and later in the Kultfabrik, bringing Munich’s nightlife out of its slumber. Artists and creative people found affordable studios and workshops in the former industrial buildings. Social organizations with offers for children and families were also on site. Together, they all shaped a spirit that inspired the planners of the new Werksviertel. If it was possible to bring so much life into an urban quarter without a single new building, shouldn’t the planning be completely different?
This gave rise to the idea of planning Werksviertel-Mitte in particular around the cultural and social diversity from the period of interim use. The old buildings were not demolished, but where possible completely renovated and mixed up in their use in the same way as the Kultfabrik and Kunstpark Ost had previously been used. The result? A lively and diverse urban quarter that feels completely different to any other quarter in the city.
