Coop Himmelb(l)au, BMW-Welt, Munchen: Opus 66

Text in English & German. The architects in the Viennese Coop Himmelb(l)au team have felt committed to the credo of constructing cities and buildings that float like clouds ever since the practice was founded in 1968, though it did take a while before gently curving, "floating" buildings became a reality. It was not until new, computer-aided design and building methods and the use of innovative building materials came along recently that it became possible to realise even unthinkable architectural hybrids so light that they actually do seem to float. So the new Musee des Confluences is currently under construction in Lyon, a cloud that has been in the planning phase for some years. And a cloud building like this also does exist in reality in Munich in the form of the new BMW World, conceived by Coop Himmelb(l)au and recently opened. This new building completes the spectacular trio of museum buildings, the Mercedes-Benz and the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, by UNStudio and Delugan Meissl Associated Architects respectively. A series of excellent interior and exterior photographs provide a record of this demonstration project by BMW. The urban-sculptural and internal spatial qualities of the new BMW World are also analysed thoroughly, and dealt with in detail in the contexts of Coop Himmelb(l)au's older and more recent work. The question is also addressed of the extent to which the structural and material shape of the building actually corresponds with an image of something light enough to float. The presentation is rounded off by a digression into the world of "branding", which has learned how to use spectacular architecture more and more directly as a publicity factor, and to convey an image, or as an artefact.