Fifty years have passed since BMW completed the construction of its tower, one that has become a reference point for an entire architectural style.
This year, 2022, marks half a century since the powerful automobile industry, more specifically the BMW brand, gave us a colossus, a building that, without a doubt, marks a before and after in modern architecture, and that, of course, does not leave any spectator indifferent, so much so that whoever visits it in search of a vehicle cannot help but stop to delight in it.
The BMW Tower was built in 1972
And the BMW Tower, whose construction was completed in 1972, just in time for the Olympic Games, has a design that clearly recalls the brand’s vehicles, referring to its tires through its shape: four cylinders that rise proud up to one hundred meters, united in their center, next to a spectacular bowl-shaped building that serves as a museum.
The two constructions are located in Munich (in case you are going to visit them), and each of them has a nickname: the Four Cylinders and the Bowl (I guess the reason for each of them). They were officially inaugurated on May 18, 1973, although that is the least important thing, today, with 50 years behind it, it looks radiant, even better than the first day (that’s what it means to have someone who takes good care of you ).
The complex is a modern reference for offices
The architect, Karl Schwanzer, did not live long afterward, so he was not able to enjoy all the success the building has amassed. And the complex has become a benchmark for modern office architecture. Of course, great deeds are born from «necessity», and at the end of the sixties, BMW needed to establish a new office center, for which it called an architectural competition (which we already know who won).
The most striking thing, however, is hidden inside, and that is that the suggestive tower is suspended almost exclusively by a central axis of obviously enormous dimensions. This futuristic design at that time dazzled the jury. And it was no wonder, construction began with the central tower, later completing the rest of the floors using enormous cross-shaped cranes.
The BMW Tower was built in 24 months
In numbers, the tower shaft supports a suspended load of 16,800 tons, which is a brutal load. The design allowed a clear industrialization of the process, by having repetitive elements, this facilitated the execution of the building in just 24 months, while the execution of the foundation and the central tower took six and a half months.
The building has twenty-two floors, 18 of which are used for offices and four for technical floors. It also has a ground floor and a basement. The most striking aesthetic feature, the cloverleaf shape, becomes the main functional feature, since this shape allows shorter paths to all office points, better communication and optimizes the organization lines of the different departments.
He received a fine for the emblems on the cover
A curiosity about the tower was that the corporate emblems on the roof brought BMW a fine of 110,000 German marks at the time, because the municipal regulations considered it to be an environmental impact, in short, so that we can see what «breed» the greyhound comes from. ”. The company printed emblems on tarps and hung them almost 100 meters to the east and west, so this last orientation resulted in the aforementioned sanction.
As you may have imagined, the tower and museum attract millions of visitors a year, making them emblems of the State of Bavaria and its most popular tourist attraction. The bowl is, in its own right, another brilliant work by the Viennese architect, designed with hardly any openings to the outside, it has several ramps and platforms on which to distribute the historic vehicles and the brand’s new references.
The museum is visited by millions of motor lovers
A frame of columns surrounds the museum, with six of different heights within the space, this supports the exterior concrete cover, created under the automotive principles of the self-supporting body, a nod to height. Thus, the interior idea of the museum is to recreate the automotive habitat: the roads, bridges and parking lots, yes, with much better lighting and fewer traffic problems (it must be said).
Two last details to finish: the colors of the museum, in dark blue, silver and white, wink at the colors of the BMW anagram, which can be seen on the roof, with a dimension of 40 meters in diameter, only visible from the high. The second is that the building obtained protected status in 1999, so the brand’s global emblem has recognition to match. Anyway, it’s a pleasure to see these buildings, and working in them, it must be something very similar to driving a BMW.