BMW Welt sets out to build the company brand by enticing the public into a destination building and offering them a complete experience - a theme-park based on cars and motoring, with restaurants, cafes and state of the art conference facilities. The functions of presentation, display, dining and car delivery are separately expressed beneath a spectacular cloud-like roof. This is the culmination of Wolf Prix's forty year obsession to realise a metaphorical architecture, giving form to clouds and wind. At the end of the concourse, the roof spirals down to the ground in a tornado-like vortex, and a public route spirals up within it to join a first floor bridge that runs the length of, and makes sense of, the whole building. The bridge overlooks the car delivery suite where those who have ordered BMW cars can have a day's training and induction before descending a ceremonial staircase to the oval delivery suite, taking possession of their car and driving down the oval ramp, out and back into the real world.
The building provides a landmark for Munich, successfully fulfilling BMW's brief to present their values of technological refinement and sustainability (there is an innovative natural ventilation and fire strategy to allow people and vehicles to co-exist within such a large enclosed volume without any subdivision of the space).
BMW Welt is clearly popular and successful for both BMW and their public, and a remarkable piece of place making.