BMW Welt

In October BMW opened its new delivery center, the "BMW Welt" (BMW World) in Munich. It was designed by some hot shot Vienna-based architectural firm, and The New York Times sent one of their architecture writers out there to check it out:

Set against a backdrop of hulking factory sheds and 1970s office towers, the building weaves together the detritus of a postwar industrial landscape, imbuing it with a more inclusive spirit. Its undulating steel forms, suggesting the magical qualities of liquid mercury, may be the closest yet that architecture has come to alchemy.

Its cavernous main hall is packed with restaurants, a cafe and a shop hawking BMW merchandise. Clients arriving at the main showroom to pick up their new cars are handed frothy cappuccinos and led into a small booth where they can try out the car’s special driving features by computer simulation. They then proceed down a grand staircase to a platform lined with BMW cars. As they approach the bottom of the staircase, spotlights light up underneath their car, which begins to rotate on a platform.

Honestly, it all seems pretty damn silly and ostentatious to me. I’d much rather see BMW offer a more affordable 1-series than build some big fancy building designed to make yuppies wet themselves. But I guess it made the BMW execs happy. Anyway, you can read the rest of the article in The New York Times. You can also learn more about it at BMW’s Welt website.