BMW Welt and Museum

Three buildings sit together here. The headquarters, known as the Four-Cylinder, was built to plans by the Austrian architect Karl Schwanzer between 1968 and 1972, in time for the 1972 Summer Olympics, and has been BMW's head office since 1973: its four vertical cylinders, 101 m (331 ft) high, are suspended from a central support tower, so each floor was assembled at ground level and then lifted into place; it has been a protected historic building since 1999. Beside it stands Schwanzer's silver museum, established in 1973 and known as the salad bowl, only about 20 m (66 ft) across at its base and about 40 m (131 ft) at its flat roof, which is painted to show the BMW logo from above. The museum was rebuilt from 2004 to 2008 and has received visitors again since 21 June 2008, with about 5,000 m² of exhibition space for about 120 exhibits: engines and turbines, aircraft, motorcycles and cars; the bowl now holds changing exhibitions, and the permanent collection is in a new building next to it. Across the road, BMW Welt, designed by Coop Himmelb(l)au with a glass double cone and an 800 kW solar plant on its roof, opened on 17 October 2007 as a showroom for BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce cars and BMW motorcycles; customers collecting ordered cars wait in a glass-walled hall while the cars rise from the floors below on round lift platforms.

Background

BMW Welt is an exhibition, delivery and event building in Munich's Am Riesenfeld district, beside the Olympic Park and close to the BMW headquarters and factory, and it works together with the neighbouring BMW Museum. After an international design competition in 2001, the contract went to the Vienna architects Coop Himmelb(l)au, and the building went up between August 2003 and summer 2007 at a cost of US$200 million, with an 800 kW solar plant on its roof. Planned for the 2006 World Cup, it opened on 17 October 2007. It is the most visited tourist attraction in Bavaria, with 2,930,000 visitors in 2013, 60% of them from Germany.

Source: Wikipedia, "BMW Welt"

Highlights

• The four-cylinder tower - the 101 m (331 ft) headquarters of 1968-1972, its cylinders hung from a central support tower.
• The museum bowl - Karl Schwanzer's silver building known as the salad bowl, now used for changing exhibitions.
• BMW Welt - a showroom for BMW, Mini and Rolls-Royce cars and BMW motorcycles, with a glass-walled delivery hall.
• Engines and aircraft - engines and turbines, aircraft and motorcycles shown beside the cars in the museum.

When to go

Year-round. BMW Welt drew 2,200,000 visitors in its first 12 months and 2,930,000 in 2013, and the museum more than 847,000 in 2025.

Good to know

The museum is BMW's own corporate museum, founded and run by the company, and it presents the firm's products in an affirmative light. BMW Welt is above all a brand showroom and the place where customers collect cars they have ordered, with shops selling BMW-branded goods and a restaurant.

Nearby

In a straight line, Olympiazentrum U-Bahn station is about 300 m to the north-northwest, and the 291 m (955 ft) Olympiaturm, a tower with an observation platform in the Olympiapark, about 300 m to the south-southwest; the Olympic Stadium is about 900 m to the west-southwest, and Marienplatz, in the city centre, about 4.6 km to the south-southeast.

Key facts