Sportforum
When the World Championship of Soccer starts in 2006, the stadium will look back on 100 years of sports-tradition. In 1906 the "Berliner Rennverein" was founded to establish a track for horse races in the noble western part of Berlin. The architect Otto March was engaged for the construction work, but he was supposed to keep the "forest-character" of the area. In 1909 the horse race-course was already in use. The old ticket-boxes still exist in "Jesse-Owens-Allee".
From the beginning, there was a stadium conceived in the centre of the horse race-course, but it could not be inaugurated until 1913 because of financial problems. 30,000 people could sit in the stadium and it was supposed to be the venue of the Olympic Games in 1916, which got cancelled because of World War I. After the war the stadium was the residence of a new founded college for physical education. The college dedicated itself to the education of sport teachers and to medical research in sports. In the mid 1920's the college obtained the area north of the race-course to establish needed buildings and practice-areas. The sons of the stadium architect Otto March, Werner and Walter, won the competition to built the "Deutsches Sportforum" (German Sport Forum). Construction started but had to be stopped at the end of the 20's because of financial problems. In 1930 Berlin applied successful for the XIth Olympic Games.
Werner March was selected to rebuild the already existing stadium. Right after 1933 there was a decisive change in the building plans: The building of a bigger stadium in the middle of the Olympic grounds. It was made to be a "prestige object" of the German Empire; no price was too high for that and no extravagance too much. In World War II the stadium was slightly damaged by shells. After the war, Britain chose the German Sport Forum as their headquarters in Berlin. They took care that the destroyed parts got rebuilt.