he BMW Museum exhibits a permanent collection with affirmative stance and is founded, as well as maintained by BMW. The BMW Museum contextualizes consumer products, in the main BMW automobiles. History, mobility, and place are the basis for the BMW Museum's exhibition strategy. BMW claims, that the BMW Museum is "a fixture of Munich culture" on a par with the Deutsches Museum and the Neue Pinakothek.
The museum shows BMW's technical development throughout the company's history. It contains engines and turbines, aircraft, motorcycles, and vehicles in a plethora of possible variations. In addition to actual models there are futuristic-looking, even conceptual studies from the past 20 years.
Known as the salad bowl or white cauldron, the silver futuristic building was designed by the architect of the BMW Headquarters, the Viennese professor Karl Schwanzer. The roughly circular base is only 20 meters in diameter, the flat roof about 40 metres. The entrance is on the ground floor
BMW Welt operations are coordinated with the other local BMW facilities, the BMW Museum and BMW Headquarters.[2] It has a showroom with the current model lineup of BMW cars and motorcycles, and the other two BMW Group brands, Mini and Rolls-Royce.
.jpg)
Customers picking up special ordered cars are given a dramatic "staged experience" in which they await their new car in an enormous glass-walled hall, and their cars are lifted up from lower levels on round elevator platforms to their respective delivery area.[3] BMW Welt also has shops selling BMW-branded promotional merchandise and accessories, and a restaurant.
The contract was awarded to the Vienna-based architects COOP HIMMELB(L)AU and the facility was constructed from August 2003 through summer 2007 at a cost of US$200 million.[4] Originally conceived to be open and ready for World Cup 2006, it eventually opened on 17 October 2007, and deliveries commenced on 23 October 2007. The first customer to take European delivery of a new BMW at the Welt was Jonathan Spira.[6] There were 2,200,000 visitors during the first 12 months of operation.[4] The number of visitors increased to 2,930,000 in 2013, of which 60% came from Germany.[7]
Designed with an 800 kW solar plant on its roof, "the building does not have the boredom of an exhibition hall, it is not only a temple but also a market place and communication center, and a meeting point for knowledge transfer", said architect Wolf D. Prix at the opening ceremony.[8]
COOP HIMMELB(L)AU's BMW Welt project records are archived at the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
