Arriving at our accommodation near to Munich’s Hauptbahnhof hadn’t left us particularly enamoured with Munich, but thankfully as we hit the main Straße our mood lightened and Munich revealed its many delights.

One of these was revealed to us on a glorious sunny Saturday when we visited the BMW headquarters near to the Olympiazentrum stop on the u-bahn. After an extensive renovation, sheer good fortune found us at the museum on its grand opening and we were not left disappointed with the results.

Entering the museum feels like entering some strange, alien place that leaves you in awe. The walls have a translucent feel, with images of BMW’s racing heritage projected onto them and really helps immerse you within the ‘BMW Welt’. As you walk around cars and motorcycles from the company’s history are in full glory on the floor, walls and ceiling and even those with little car enthusiasm will concede to the beauty of some of the models.

I’m not much of a petrol-head and thankfully that isn’t too much of a hindrance to view the museum, though some of the exhibitions are slightly preachy and their wartime history is slightly too selective, with little mention of the use of concentration camp workers by BMW. Exhibitions change between history, technical, design, racing and BMW branding as you walk around keeping your attention with some very cool interactive features. One feature that was particularly cool was the white tables that have a computer image projected onto them, but when you touch the table like a touch screen, new windows open-up giving a very satisfying feeling that you are in the not-too-distant future already.

The most stunning exhibition that I visited was at the top of the low building. A panoramic video is projected round the walls of the circular building, taking you on a voyage that is quite disorientating as your perspective keeps changing while you remain fixed still but, added with the ramp that takes you from the bottom to the top of the building, really gives a floating atmosphere. It almost felt as if I had been attached to a balloon and was slowly rising towards the stars, which sounds daft but really was an experience that has stayed with me.

Written by  John Johnston.

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