Porsche 2005 Annual Report Download - page 66

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cism and performance. The Porsche Tennis Grand Prix is the
highlight of the year’s sporting calendar. In October 2006, this
top-class ladies’ tennis tournament was held for the first time
in the new “Porsche Arena” and not in Filderstadt. The premie-
re in the Stuttgart arena included some of the world’s best
women tennis players. As well as cash prizes, there was a 911
Targa 4S for the tournament champion.
The Porsche Tennis Grand Prix was
held in the “Porsche Arena” for
the first time. January 2007 sees the
company’s first Annual General
Meeting in the new hall in Stuttgart.
In October 2005, Porsche paid a fee of ten million Euro to
secure the naming rights for the newly-erected arena located
right beside the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle in Stuttgart-
Bad Cannstatt for a twenty-year period. The logo above the
Hall entrance comprises Porsche’s red emblem combined
with a bold arena silhouette in metallic gray. From January
2007, the “Porsche Arena” will also be the venue for Porsche’s
Annual General Meeting. The Arena’s highly versatile layout
offers seats for up to 7,500 visitors. It is also suited to
sports such as handball, basketball and ice-skating, not to
mention concerts.
In addition to tennis, Porsche supports an ice hockey team,
the “Bietigheim Steelers” from Bietigheim-Bissingen, where
many of the company’s subsidiaries are located.
Porsche Museum under Construction
The new Porsche museum building at the company’s headquar-
ters in Zuffenhausen, began in October 2005 is rightly conside-
red a spectacular architectural project. The Viennese firm of
architects Delugan Meissl opted for an extraordinary design: a
dynamically structured, monolithic body seems to sway over
the ground at first floor level. Its appearance should strike
onlookers as unusual and extremely appealing. Covering an
area of approximately 5,000 square meters, the new museum
will present 80 valuable historical models in rotation as well as
other exhibits from the company’s history. The museum is
scheduled to open in 2008.
Broad Cultural Commitments
Porsche has a long tradition of supporting outstanding cultural
events. This year, our company enabled the Stuttgart State
Opera to make unique guest appearance in Tokyo. The famous
ensemble gave three performances of Mozart’s opera “The
Magic Flute” in February 2006 in Japan’s capital, and these
were received with tremendous enthusiasm. A further highlight
was the performance of Carl Orff’s choral work “Carmina Bu-
rana” in Leipzig’s Nikolaikirchhof on Whit Sunday 2006. This
melodious contribution to Leipzig’s city festival was made
possible by a donation from Porsche.
From May to October 2006, Porsche’s Stuttgart site hosted
an exhibition by the artist Jürgen Goertz. The exhibition’s
focus was the piece entitled “Moments of Movements”, which
Goertz, who was considered one of the most important
sculptors of his generation, took over 13 years to create. The
basis of his work was the bare chassis of a 911 from 1993.
Well-informed Customers and Employees
The customer magazine “Christophorus”, one of the first publi-
cations of its kind in the motor vehicle industry, has proved
an important instrument for promoting customer loyalty since
1952. In the review year, the magazine underwent further
improvements. It now provides more detailed information on
the technology of the new Porsche models and its lifestyle
themes have a closer connection to the Porsche brand. The
magazine appears every two months and is now published in
eight languages, including Mandarin Chinese, Japanese and
Korean, which were added recently. A ninth version, this time
in Russian, will be launched in spring 2007.
As well as its customers, Porsche keeps its employees well
informed. The employees’ newspaper “Carrera” has been
published since September 19, 1984, the date of Professor
Communication