Bmw Plant, Central Building

By Francesco Pagliari - 8 January 2010

In October 2004, BMW moved into the Central Building at its new Leipzig premises. The building’s design is a radical new interpretation of open office landscape, delivering an engaging message of connectivity and transparency combined with functionality. The call for tenders specified the aim of translating industrial architecture into an aesthetic concept that would equally comply with representational and functional requirements. Accordingly, the central building acts as a “mediator” between the production halls and public space. Its architecture adapts and moulds itself to the site, orienting the various directions of access, synthesising a complex series of concerns into a seamless, integrated whole. This is made possible by the curvilinear morphology that incorporates a multitude of forms and directions without fragmentation.
The project is contained in a narrow stretch of land since the adjacent buildings had already been finalised. With a wide range of suppliers pre-appointed for the rest of the factory, many fit-out elements were selected from a standard range of products, emphasising BMW’s industrial approach.
The Central Building is the nerve-centre of the whole factory complex, the core linking the 3 main departments of Body-in-White, Paint Shop and Assembly while serving as the entrance to the plant. The building acts therefore like a force field attracting and distributing. Its architecture expresses this function clearly: circulation routes and segments of production converge on this giant compression chamber where workers and visitors but also production lines intersect and communicate. This Central Building is the hub and “market place” of the dynamic spatial system that is the factory. As a point offering administrative and reception facilities for workers and visitors, it enhances communication and interchange.
International spatial organisation is centred on the scissor-section that seamlessly connects ground and first floors....