A good year before it reopens, the New BMW Museum is going online. From the end of February 2006 www.bmw-museum.de is offering a first preview of the brand's new museum. An all-embracing new concept in alliance with a radical expansion of the exhibition area lends the project an innovative profile. The New BMW Museum opens in summer 2007.
New concept
The concept of the New BMW Museum positions the fascination of the BMW brand centre stage. The plan envisages a museum of the future that expresses the innovative power and forward-looking approach of the brand as well as mirroring its strength and refinement. Vehicles, themes, architecture, design and media design will come together to create an unprecedented exhibition composition. The design and engine-building competence of the BMW brand will be impressively documented, with the Group's achievements and epoch-spanning developments illuminated from differing perspectives. A central route will open up a broad exhibition spectrum while innovative exhibition and media architecture will reflect the brand's distinguishing attributes of innovation, power and dynamics.
Dynamicised architecture across 5,000 square metres
The architectural design of the museum "bowl" sparked the idea for the spatial continuation of the new museum architecture into the adjacent Pavilion. Through this extension, the exhibition area alone is increased from 1,000 to 5,000 square metres. An apparently "floating" ramp system will thrust dynamically into the space and link up with open and closed exhibition elements. Modern façades, interlinking paths and fascinating sightlines in the interior will generate a lively urban setting. The museum architecture, which is made up of large-scale glass façades, is designed as an urban "traffic complex" comprising streets, buildings, squares and bridges.
Forward-looking architecture and exhibitions
The system of ramps moves between the exhibition elements and grants the visitor powerful visual impressions. Varying exhibitions staged with aesthetic sophistication will add up to a spatial sequence of uniquely evocative impressions. Here the new media in particular will generate a special aura: in the context of an all-embracing "mediatecture" they will turn the spotlight on the BMW vehicles. Interactive features will offer varying levels of information and draw the visitor into the exhibition action.
Milestones of success
With some 100 original exhibits, the New BMW Museum will present a globally unique survey of all the important aero-engines, motorcycles and cars of the BMW brand, providing an impressive account of its product diversity, continuity and innovation as well as its successful path from the beginnings to the present. The visitor route is broadly staked out across a total of 25 exhibition areas. Themes such as corporate history, design, technology and motor sport will take on added perspectives within the framework of changing exhibitions.
A magnet for visitors for more than 30 years
With the New BMW Museum, BMW is opening up a completely new chapter of a success story that began in 1973: "In the last 30 years, the BMW Museum has staged five major long-term exhibitions, including 'Time Signals' with its links to society, zeitgeist and culture. On average, we have recorded more than 200,000 visitors a year in the past, placing us second in the Munich museum landscape after the Deutsches Museum," sums up Holger Lapp, Director of BMW Mobile Tradition. "The New BMW Museum will once again be setting benchmarks in the future."
BMW brand experience in Munich
The new BMW Museum is part of the new brand experience at the Munich site being created in the direct neighbourhood of the group headquarters and the Olympic Park. At the BMW Welt - the group's new experience and delivery centre - as well as in the new BMW Museum, and as part of the New plant tour, visitors can experience the full fascination of the BMW brand.
See the museum here
