BMW Central Building – Zaha Hadid
The BMW central building project is one of Zaha Hadid’s most renowned works in Germany, The organization of the BMW central building exploits the obvious sequence of front to back for the phasing of public/busy to more withdrawn/quiet activities. The façade envelope is pulled in under a large diagonally projecting top floor. Here the car drop-off swoops underneath letting off visitors into the glazed public lobby.
The primary organizing strategy is the scissor section that connects ground floor and first floor into a continuous field. Two sequences of terraced plates – like giant staircases – step up from north to south and from south to north. One commences close to the public lobby passing by/overlooking the forum to reach the first floor in the middle of the building.
The other cascade starts with the cafeteria at the south end moving up to meet the first cascade then moving all the way up to the space projecting over the entrance. The two cascading sequences capture a long connective void between them. At the bottom of this void is the auditing area as a central focus of everybody’s attention. Above the void, the half-finished cars are moving along their tracks between the various surrounding production units open to view.
See more images of Zaha Hadid’s BMW factory in this Slideshow:
BMW Central Building Project info:
Year: 2001–2005
PROGRAM: Offices and technical spaces for car manufacturing plant
CLIENT: BMW AG Triebstrasse 14 80993 München Germany
SIZE: 25000 m²
ARCHITECT: ZAHA HADID ARCHITECTS
DESIGN: Zaha Hadid with Patrik Schumacher
PROJECT ARCHITECT: Jim Heverin, Lars Teichmann
PROJECT TEAM: Matthias Frei, Jan Huebener, Annette Bresinsky, Manuela Gatto, Fabian Hecker, Cornelius Schlotthauer, Wolfgang Sunder, Anneka Wegener, Markus Planteu, Robert Neumayr, Christina Beaumont, Achim Gergen, Caroline Anderson
COMPETITION TEAM: Lars Teichmann, Eva Pfannes, Kenneth Bostock, Stephane Hof, Djordje Stojanovic, Leyre Villoria, Liam Young, Christiane Fashek, Manuela Gatto, Tina Gregoric Cesare Griffa, Yasha Jacob Grobman, Filippo Innocenti, Zetta Kotsioni, Debora Laub, Sarah Manning, Maurizio Meossi, Robert Sedlak, Niki Neerpasch, Eric Tong, Tiago Correia
CONSULTANTS:
PARTNER ARCHITECT: IFB Dr. Braschel AG (Stuttgart, Germany), WPW Ingenieure Gmbh
STRUCTURAL: IFB Dr. Braschel AG (Stuttgart, Germany), Anthony Hunt Associates (London, UK)
LIGHTING: Equation Lighting (London, UK)
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT: Gross. Max (Edinburgh, UK)
COSTING: IFB Dr. Braschel AG (Stuttgart, Germany)
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