MUNICH'S BILLION-DOLLAR BABY

The Olympic Games have grown so big that, like a protozoan, they have split in two. One half is the competition, the other the preparation. In the past six years Munich has spent $1 billion building and refurbishing itself for the Olympics. And these Games were supposed to be an "intimate affair, emphasizing the human scale, underscoring the union of body and mind." Hoo boy! The installations are bigger, better and more costly than ever; and there are new freeways, new hotels, new restaurants, new stores, new public gardens, new discoth√®ques and a new subway. There are also new estimates daily—for example, the roof of the main stadium was supposed to cost $4.6 million; so far it has cost $55.8 million—and Munich is flat, stony broke. West German artist Hans-Georg Rauch went to Munich in the midst of the boom and bust) and, on the following pages, he has transformed what he saw and what he envisioned into what might be called a third Olympics—a wry, dry, wacky view of the quadrennial madness: workmen patiently filling the swimming pool and lowering an essential segment into the main stadium; the Olympic torch-bearer making his grand entrance; and what has got to be a world-record hammer throw.

FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS