The Munich Airport was the first airport of the world to give this mixture of functions a new structural expression and image. The covered MAC Forum is the airport city's central plaza, allowing the connection of all buildings, retail stores, and service functions as well as the transition from train and car to the airplane.

This is done in a standard that well exceeds the one of traditional city centers, creating spaces with a truly urban standard. Like castles of the 18th century, airports are a building type of our generation that integrates transportation, commerce, technology, and landscape. This deals with a new determination of the relationship between travel, work, transient living, shopping, entertainment and a new experience. The Munich Airport City newly defines the airport in an era of globalization.

The MAC creates a visible and livable identity and represents the airport, Munich, and the region as a modern and technological city. Not only the big gesture of the roof, the hall and the portals, but especially the interior space contribute to the special character of the structure. Because this interior space gives the first impression of the city, in which one just arrived, it establishes the first - often deciding - relationship to the place. It is not an anonymous transfer location, but a foyer to the city with recreational features, carefully created by quality, material and detail. Just as Fritz Lang's legendary film "Metropolis" showed the future of a city in 1927, the MAC opens a new perspective for the city 70 years later: as an urban platform for encounter, as a mediator between center and periphery, and as an attractive city space creating a local identity within global networks.

In 1989, Murphy/Jahn was commissioned with the master plan of the "Neutral Zone" of the airport, containing hotel, office and retail space, and parking. In the heart of the plan, the MAC becomes the link to the existing buildings, the future Terminal 2, and to the road and rail infrastructure.

The overall plan enhances the concept of integrating the landscape into the airport. Open, covered and enclosed "rooms" draw the surrounding landscape into the architecture. This synthesis of built form and varied landscapes presents a rich sequence of forms, spaces and colors that offer a memorable experience and visual collage. Conceptually, the normal division between interior and exterior space is broken down, a transition is made from high technology to nature. The airport is never opposed to the natural world, but strives to compliment it.

The MAC was finished in 1999. Seen from the entry road to the airport, the MAC Roof becomes the visible symbol for the airport. It creates spatial orientation for the passenger terminal area and gives the airport identity and order.