BMW Museum, Automobile museum in Milbertshofen-Am Hart, Munich, Germany.
The BMW Museum is a corporate automobile museum in Munich. Its silver, bowl-shaped building, designed by Karl Schwanzer, has a roughly circular base about 20 metres across and a flat roof about 40 metres wide, painted with the BMW logo. Inside, a spiral walkway rises past engines, turbines, aircraft, motorcycles and cars, with four island displays along the way.
The BMW Museum opened in 1973, shortly after the 1972 Summer Olympics. It closed in 2004 for rebuilding and extension alongside the construction of BMW Welt opposite, and reopened on 21 June 2008. The permanent exhibition was redesigned by Atelier Brückner of Stuttgart, with media installations by ART+COM of Berlin; exhibition space grew fivefold to about 5,000 square metres.
The collection shows vehicles from different phases of the brand's history, giving visitors insight into innovations that shaped the automobile industry. You can follow the evolution from motorcycles to modern models and understand how the company influenced industrial development.
Access is straightforward, with elevators and ramps available throughout the building for visitors with mobility needs. The collection spans multiple levels, so visitors should allow time for a thorough tour.
The flat roof carries a painted BMW roundel in blue and white quarters, ringed by the letters "BMW"; it reads as a logo only from an elevated viewpoint, such as the neighbouring BMW Headquarters tower. The building's roughly circular base measures about 20 metres across, while the roof spans about 40 metres, which is why locals call it the salad bowl or white cauldron.
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