in case you have never heard of bmw welt, this facility is BMW’s new masterpiece in munich. designed by the austrian firm coop himmelb(l)au- with the chief architect, wolf d. prix. the building is a whack to both structural and sustainability aspects, but believe me, only the structural form will drop your jaw to the ground!
call it twisting double cone, twister-like twin cone, hourglass shaped or whatever. but in my mind it appears to be a singularity (those black hole kind-of-a-thing). geez, just applaud the structural engineers for being able to have this kind of sculptural structure standing. ha, wolf prix sure make all the passing vehicles slowdown through the junction!
a twisted torque structure, built with glass forming a helix-shaped that emulates a form of tornado, which also looks like a whirling sculpture captured in suspended animation. undulating funnel and seamlessly.. what’s that? enough of describing that thing? alright alright, so guess what, that form is so influential until even the roof is almost sucked into it!
now you believe me don’t you? oh yeah, the adjacent building you see over there is the famous BMW four-cylinder headquarters which is so ineptly iconic to BMW. apparently that building is designed by karl schwanzer, which was wolf prix’s professor. but, hey don’t you quite notice that the bmw welt is into iconography too? just a little bit subtle maybe.. but don’t you notice that the helix feature (yeah, again) emulates the BMW logo?
think again. take the structure as elevation, and focus one of the colors of the logo (blue or white).. now don’t you see a hourglass? OK, if that is not enough, look at the twisted torque as in a plan and notice which is covered in glass and which in steel. look at the logo again. isn’t it the same thing?
heh, reminds me of a line from the times;
“Of these recent German buildings, BMW Welt, which opened in the fall, is both the most blatant as corporate self-promotion and the most exhilarating as architecture.” - ny times on bmw welt
the first impression I have on that funnel structure is it’s basically functionless, or maybe too small for any functions. but guess what?
heck, it can fit both a curved walkway and an activity hall inside! and what, the walkway comes from outside! which means the visitors walk from the main buildings to a suspended skybridge and towards and downwards this activity hall. look at how those steel and glass segments… *saliva*
imagine walking down the curved walkway (which somehow reminds me of guggenheim museum by frank lloyd wright)… observing a car from 360 degrees… plus the car itself on a rotating platform. hey, that is enough to blow any autophile’s head. and I havn’t even consider how the light will penetrate the structure like a crystallined surface, showering those auto machines from every direction!
wait, I’m not finished with that hourglass yet. let’s see if you can take this- the whole roof structure (plus all the solar panels) that weighs almost 2000 tonnes of steel (who cares how heavy they are anyway) actually relies on that hourglass thing! take a look at the section, the roof actually ends with the funnel structure, helping to anchor it to the ground.
ok ok, the whole roof does not depend on the torque structure completely, there are other 11 columns to help. wait did I just said 11 columns? it got to be floating then. lol, here’s an interesting sentence from an article;
“One of Prix’s pet peeves has always been structural columns—those ungainly supports that tend to get in the way of free-flowing space and, um, hold buildings up. As a result, Coop Himmelb(l)au engineered the massive roof of BMW Welt, which involves 2,000 tons of steel, to rest on only 11 columns—a surprisingly paltry number that might make even the most die-hard BMW fan think twice about stepping inside.” from men’s vogue
some describe the roof as floating like a dream, hovering in mid-air and gigantic carpet draped over the main hall. for me, it’s just as simple as one word; cloud. of course it is; that is practically the style of coop himmelb(l)au which also literally means something like ‘cooperative sky blue building’. here’s what the chief architect of coop himmelb(l)au, wolf prix had to say;
“We translated the geometry of a constantly changing cloud into architecture. When we founded this firm, we said sky blue is not a color, but rather the idea of having architecture that changes like clouds. At the time, we were protesting against stupid, rigid boxes.” - wolf d. prix
I dunno, I kinda like sky too. I mean, who don’t? it’s peaceful what.
alright, to be honest - this whole building gives me a sense of futurism. look at those steel and glass - I know seagram building also uses steel and glass, but I mean the way he puts them together with the curves, that are so sensual and seamless. cloud-like roof is one, but the whole interior consists of those spline curvature and archs. just like a futurist agenda.
right, frank gehry also used curvature a lot? but wolf prix never used any pointed elements, it’s just too aggresive and I felt gehry’s buildings are mostly sketchy and too ‘collaged’. ok, back to welt.
“To emphasize a sense of mystery, the main hall is organized in a slight arc, so that it reveals itself only gradually. Shops line the hall on both sides, while spacious curved walkways crisscross the space overhead.” ny times
sense of mystery? well, I’m not sure about that. but curves are most certainly.
hey! a suspended space from the roof. like what ken yeang did for our campus (which never came true). alright, the best part, look what I found in youtube;
quotes?
“We can now prove that we can do what, a few years back, we were saying we could do. - It emphasizes the impression of floating. And it’s very sexy.” - wolf d. prix on his work, BMW welt
plus;
an architectural student from malaysia, studying in limkokwing university of creative technology, pursuing his degree in architectural science
