Central Building, BMW Plant

Related person

Zaha Hadid (was created by)

Date

compeitition held 2002; inauguration May 2005

Location

Europe->Germany->Saxony->Leipzig

Description

The plant "...functions as a centralized node connecting three production buildings, designed by BMW's own real estate and facility management group and completed in 2004, each of which contains a distinct segment of the assembly sequence: the fabrication of raw auto bodies (645,000 square feet), the paint shop (270,000 square feet), and finally the vast assembly hall (1,075,000 square feet), where painted shells are fitted out and released as finished luxury vehicles. Hadid's 430,000-square-foot building, located at the intersection of these three production sheds, contains offices, an employee cafeteria, an auditorium, and glass-enclosed "audit rooms," where cars are randomly plucked off the assembly line, dissected, and analyzed in a public autopsy for quality control. The building functions neither solely as administration nor as production space; it melds two integral but typically isolated strands of industrial business into a mutually inspiring relationship." --Barreneche, R. (2005). Zaha Hadid. Architectural Record, 193(8), 82.
The $1.55 billion complex is located on the outskirts of Leipzig.

Keywords: Germany, Saxony, Leipzig, views, industrial structures. Submitted by Zachary Snyder.

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