Zaha Hadid Architects | BMW Showroom

in Architecture by editor — 8:36 pm | March 15, 20120 comments

Program:  A new showroom for BMW to present and sell the newest car models of the brand as well as to hand over company cars to the staff of the BMW plant next by.  Connected to the display hall there is a car workshop and an after sales training unit.  All are located within the public car-park of the BMW Central building.

© Werner Huthmacher

Competition
With the commission for the Showroom – that also serves as delivery unit for company cars and includes also a car garage and a training academy – the last member in the chain of BMW buildings for the plant in Leipzig, which came out of a competition from the year 2001, is closed.

Integration
The Showroom with its significant form located right at the main approach to the central building and at the beginning of the great public car-park gives the right tune and notion to what expects the visitor within the BMW central building.  The dynamic shaping of the Showroom gives a reference to the processes and flows of production that take place within the plant and that are inherent for the product itself – the BMW car.

Form and Function
Embedded in the movement motion and following the force field that generates from the trajectories of the central building the Showroom forms out of the surface of the car-park like a greener branch out of the bitumen and thus extends these surfaces with the omnipresent design principle into the third dimension. Essentially two building parts are formulated pointing in opposite directions and apparently rotating around each other.  Within that one building part, which constantly extends at height and width, the so-called „Showroom“ or exhibition hall is accommodated. The interface to the workshop and the academy unit forms the exposed concrete wall with its curved and rhombic passages.  As a main design feature the concrete wall starts very low at the entrance and gains continuously in height until it finds its conclusion in a swung end within the main area of the building – to the vehicle distribution.

© Werner Huthmacher

Material and construction
The choices of the facade material for the two building parts reflect the respective uses of the two building parts.  The façade of Showroom part presents itself light and openly.  Through the  transparent „ strip windows“ that are embedded within the translucent industrial glass façade, various sights in and out are possible.  The stonewalled and bitumen-grey cleaned front of the workshop part with elongated strip windows and gate entries shields more the place of the concentrated work against to much distraction from the outside.

Tags: Automobile car car showroom featured ftnews Germany Leipzig showroom Zaha Hadid Architects