This building seriously caught my eye perusing arch news now. I've always been interested in their stuff but i've never really seen them put their money where their mouth is. I know they've completed a museum addition here in the U.S as well as a few other projects in Europe, but for some odd reason this space with its insane "whirlpool/blackhole/cyclone" in front is by far and away the most impressive thing i've seen from their office. Maybe it all comes down to German engineering and craftsmanship making sense of the chaos but I'm seriously diggin' this building, at least in images. Thoughts?
i don't really like the shapes personally, but that's just me...and the reason i'm commenting is because i am very impressed with the craftsmanship. looks way better than the physical quality of a lot of american funny-shaped things, like the libeskind art museum in denver.
Well, that's what gets me about it, is just how well put together it seems. This must have been one nasty project to engineer and build, yet it comes out looking pretty good. I mean, it really could have looked like a dog chewed on it.
A certain fantacist we know would have a fit over the "fiddled" member in the left foreground of the second shot -- and the glass clips in photo #1 seem randomly placed (!). But it amazes me these things can be built at all -- at any price. That all those triangles on the undulating planes are perfectly shaped, for instance, would once have been virtually impossible.
the cyclone-double-cone-ramp-stair whirlpool is a theme they have (re)used everywhere: check out the images of their proposals for the egyptian museum and the busan cinema complex. An odd trademark, methinks.
Randar...why is it the "worst ever window detail"? You should defend your opinion, perhaps after the construction is over would be a better time to judge as it continues to evolve each day.
I assume most of the critics here are students. Only students that never built anything in their lifes can have these opinions, what is a good detail and what is bad.
oh give me a break, "Only students that never built anything in their lifes can have these opinions, what is a good detail and what is bad." Let me chime in here as a "non-student" and elaborate why that detail is a P.O.S.:
-First of all, THE WALL DIES INTO THE WINDOW. Creating a totally useless gap and a semi-useless hopper window. That gap is not a "reveal", its a fucking mistake.
-There is a dimensional mismatch between the cladding and the window, making for a awkward-looking cut panel at the top of the window.
-The window seems to be cutting through the rain-screen on the adjacent side, which basically means there is a hole for water to flow straight into the building, unless they have some kind of magic moisture barrier.
details are overrated. only architects and the overeducated care about them. buildings can be instant icons and be horribly detailed. the success of a building is determined on a macro scale and on how many people get their picture taken in front of it.
I believe the whirlpool deal is called a "gravity well".
To give a completely unenlightened response. I agree, BMW Rocks!
I don't think it's just German engineering / craftsmanship I think it's the German legal system. Or rather the litigation happy everyone else is responsible for my problems American legal system that results in rather ridiculous measures to cover ones self. Add to that dealing with LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District) and their 1950's codes.
As far as the detailing goes... I need to tread careful here.... I believe liability and thereby ultimate responsibility lies with the architect of record.... with whom design consultants aren't always in agreement. Nuff said.
Most of the criticism of the square peg in a round hole (I don't disagree with it being a bit awkward but) I wouldn't consider to be a detail issue, it's a larger scale design issue.
At one point in the project there was a "magic moisture barrier" being worked on, don't know if they got it or not (from the photo of the end it doesn't look like it). But if so the wall doesn't really die into the window. Basically the round metal trim would also be "rain screen". But those details were not finalized when I left, and I wasn't working on that portion of it.
The mismatched panel and window size are not an accident. Coop Himmelblay aint Richard Meier. Likewise with the seemingly "awkward" detailing. I don't think they have an interest in forcing a detail to be a particular way ala Mies, covering up the actual detailing with a fake but pretty detail. In fact I think they go out of their way to do the opposite.
Where's Donny to explain this when I need him? You out there?
so psych, i take it you've worked with these guys?
Pretty wild stuff then. I'll say the detailing surprised me at BMW because it wasn't what I was expecting from Coop. Their work always seems to have this "dog chewed on it" effect which in many cases I find endearing, yet when their stuff is actually well-detailed it takes on a new aura. It looks more like a UFO than a building, like it was engineered by aliens, if I may be so corny.
Only a very small amonut of a details sucess can be judged from a photograph. Unless one knows the project most of what is being said here is mindless rhetoric. Jaha's is remark is irresponsible and randar82 has still not defended the position of why this is the worst detail ever.
Ah the mild climate of Los Angeles. I don't know if you're serious Appleseed but it's actually a good point. I saw many a detail in LA that you can't get away with in the North West. Many of those could have been described as poor detailing, but I guess if the climate will tolerate it, why over do it?
the square fenestration in the circular opening totally ruins the whole idea of having circular openings in the first place. obviously they are not incapable of cutting circular glass, as they filled the sides with it. it would have been much more impressive to see those openings uninterrupted with a square window.
it's made that much worse becuase not only is it square, it's the exact same window as above. it's like using the same laminate in the kitchen and the bathroom. okay, maybe not that bad, but the least they could have done is picked a simple square piece of glass so it created the least visual damage as possible.
it was all probably a matter of cost. maybe it was intentional. like the giant piece of steel that wraps the entry tower and seems to have no function. it just seems like there should have been a better solution.
While I don't feel the need to justify every move with function. In the spiral's defense it was supposed to be a ramp that takes you up to an observation platform / looking over downtowl Los Angeles. LAUSD was concerned about students on top of the theater and vandalism and all sort of things... if got VE'd out leaving you with a crazy sculpture... last I heard it was back in and it would be an accessible space at the top of the tower. Don't know if that's tru anymore
I agree with you on the square window. I think people were jumping on the criticisim of the "detail" we can't see the actual detail of how that fenestration in the skin is acomplished from these photos (which doesn't seem to be what you're even talking about).
I assume the window needed to be operable. which I think is where the square window came from (this is conjecture though as I wasn't involved in that).
I pass by this thing all too often and have to say many things really bother me about it...
I agree the windows are a huge problem. After you see the depressing buildings in the back with their little prison-like punched openings and and then look back to the front building with the circles, whats the point of them? Are they just a function of visibility from the street? Fair enough, but it seems to be a joke how they are superimposed with the operable windows that are needed... and I don't like the sarcasm...
A part of the building is just a function of visibility. The spectacle part of the building is pushed towards the freeway so everyone sees it driving by. Meanwhile on Sunset Blvd, where foot traffic is the heaviest, they put a parking lot along the street.
somehow i'm with mauone here. i'm not usually squeamish about what gets built and what doesn't and i think the bmw project is a beautiful thing. but it was probably just as beautiful in renderings.
if it had been built to some more useful purpose than the power and glory of bmw i might like it better and resent its use of resources less. i feel the same about unstudios mercedes project and other similar showcases. they're really just resource-intensive advertisements.
i dunno. this kind of project stymies me. it's so beautiful but there's this nagging thing in the back of my mind that totally objects to such obscene decadence/extravagance at this point in our world history.
Does anybody get the feeling that what's getting built today is (among other things) a demonstration of how much design-and-CD time is being saved by the digital revolution ? That some of these sculptural tours-de-force (if that's what they are) would not previously have been affordable ?
Also I don't think there's a parking lot (I believe there is a garage under one of the buildings) I think maybe you're referig to the bus turn around / drop off?
Steven, that's what I was thinking. I like this project for its sculptural qualities, from the early renderings on, and am impressed by the physical 'thing' itself. but our interest in the form and quality of construction seems to be disjointed from what this building actually is. functionally its a cross between a suburban car showroom and a theatrical stage set for product launches/cocktail parties, and appears to be successful in that respect. what that has to do with double inverted cones is anyone's guess.
having said that, sustainable issues aside, its hard to begrudge them using the project to push their experimental approach.
Does anyone have a link to the video produced to pitch the to the client? I believed it was an elaborate production using a huge model and tiny cameras...
hey apuri,
Disney land can be called impressive but not really interesting as architecture, to me this is a waste of money and resources just for impressing the media and some general population folks
it IS interesting that Germans will construct anything very well, but that's as far as this project is interesting to me.
I have been looking for the sculpture designed by Tim Prentice which
has been installed in this building. There was a spread in a local rag
about the project but no photos.
i recently visited munich and went over to coop's bmw welt. my expectations were pretty high, seeing as the sketches, drawings and renders of the building were so impressive. also, i'm a biggish fan of their old stuff, the malibu house, the vienna rooftop extension et al.
but strangely enough, once i was standing in the welt, it was rather disappointing. it's just all wrong, very inelegant. the spatial proportions are clunky, the structure is heavier than it ought to be, the roof doesn't really do anything for the weight/lightness of the volume. actually, to me, the roof was the most disappointing thing about the whole building. i somehow always imagined that thickness (and boy, it is thick!) to be inhabitable. but it isn't. or at least, i couldn't work out a way to get up there. it seemed as if its just thick because of the spans across the atrium. shame, i think there was a missed opportunity there.
the circulation is a bit strange, too. it's as if they didn't really think very hard about moving people through the space. and funnily enough (for a coop building at least) there's very little spatial complexity. they've tried to pull off a few swoopy curvey tricks with the ramp and handrail surfaces which just come off as being very amateur. like students playing with rhino for the first time.
that whirlpool/cyclone thing is fricking ugly. the structure is so heavy, it kills the whole effect. too bad.
ok, i admit i'm not being very precise with my analysis of the building. these were all just gut feelings. i was pretty bored after about 15 mins in the building. the whole place felt as if they spent 99% of their design time figuring out how to construct those geometries because, hey, whatever its design shortcomings were, it was very very well put together. ok, i also suppose that the design must have been produced about 5 years ago (practically another technological era), which is maybe why they didn't seem to have too much control over the geometries.
it truly seemed a shame about that roof and the cyclone bit. almost across the street is frei otto's olympic stadium. 30+ years old, similar geometric tricks, but oh so elegant! it's so much more sensitively put together, a real pleasure to walk around in.
in that same trip, i also visited un studio's mercedes museum. now THAT was pretty impressive, and not just because of the cars. they've got that whole continuous-surface-circulation-diagram thing going in the plan of the place, and it works super-well. what i liked most is that after a while, the building just disappeared. in the sense that moving through the spaces is so well knit into the overall curatorial setup that after a while the architecture just dissolves. nice to see a starchitect produce a building thats just not so self-conscious all the time. at least, not from the inside.
another building to keep an eye out for is the porsche museum that's under construction in stuttgaart. i visited the construction site late, when it was already dark and everyone seemed to have gone home for the day. couldn't see very much except for a mega-gigantic raised mat-like building hovering about 10m off the ground on two humongous columns/girders. a poster on the site boundary wall displayed a pretty interesting looking concept render. i can't remember who's designed it, some austrian firm. but it looks like it'll be pretty amazing once its all done.
That's fine TT, i think gut reactions are a huge part of architecture. Its been a while since I've been on this thread but your analysis seems far more relevant than mine seeing how you've actually been there.
Coop Himme[l]blau's BMW Welt
This building seriously caught my eye perusing arch news now. I've always been interested in their stuff but i've never really seen them put their money where their mouth is. I know they've completed a museum addition here in the U.S as well as a few other projects in Europe, but for some odd reason this space with its insane "whirlpool/blackhole/cyclone" in front is by far and away the most impressive thing i've seen from their office. Maybe it all comes down to German engineering and craftsmanship making sense of the chaos but I'm seriously diggin' this building, at least in images. Thoughts?
Ain't it crazy how the glass in the "cyclone" just blends right into the roof?
always get a kick out of Coop's sketches - BMW Welt:
i don't really like the shapes personally, but that's just me...and the reason i'm commenting is because i am very impressed with the craftsmanship. looks way better than the physical quality of a lot of american funny-shaped things, like the libeskind art museum in denver.
Well, that's what gets me about it, is just how well put together it seems. This must have been one nasty project to engineer and build, yet it comes out looking pretty good. I mean, it really could have looked like a dog chewed on it.
libeskind's a hack. he should have stopped after the felix nussbaum haus and the jewish museum in berlin.
wolf + helmut have a lot of experience getting those funky angles to be built well.
of course, their laborers aren't any geek off the street, if you know what i mean.
maybe one day after the icecaps melt it will evolve into a coral reef and be a sanctuary for the colorful fishies.
and a sexy reef it would make...
A certain fantacist we know would have a fit over the "fiddled" member in the left foreground of the second shot -- and the glass clips in photo #1 seem randomly placed (!). But it amazes me these things can be built at all -- at any price. That all those triangles on the undulating planes are perfectly shaped, for instance, would once have been virtually impossible.
and this is what happens when they build in the US::
LA HIGH SCHOOL FOR THE VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS
'worst window detail...EVER!'
enlarged for clarity
wow. awesome windows...
the cyclone-double-cone-ramp-stair whirlpool is a theme they have (re)used everywhere: check out the images of their proposals for the egyptian museum and the busan cinema complex. An odd trademark, methinks.
Randar...why is it the "worst ever window detail"? You should defend your opinion, perhaps after the construction is over would be a better time to judge as it continues to evolve each day.
It looks like there is a slight reveal where water would collect.
talk about value engineering. this building in concept seemed more interesting.
I assume most of the critics here are students. Only students that never built anything in their lifes can have these opinions, what is a good detail and what is bad.
oh give me a break, "Only students that never built anything in their lifes can have these opinions, what is a good detail and what is bad." Let me chime in here as a "non-student" and elaborate why that detail is a P.O.S.:
-First of all, THE WALL DIES INTO THE WINDOW. Creating a totally useless gap and a semi-useless hopper window. That gap is not a "reveal", its a fucking mistake.
-There is a dimensional mismatch between the cladding and the window, making for a awkward-looking cut panel at the top of the window.
-The window seems to be cutting through the rain-screen on the adjacent side, which basically means there is a hole for water to flow straight into the building, unless they have some kind of magic moisture barrier.
Ugh, we could go on. Yeah. total shit detail.
-andrew
that's a bold statement there jaja, you care to elaborate? Because i've seen plenty of licensed, practicing architects crit details on this forum.
how about the square peg in the round hole?
details are overrated. only architects and the overeducated care about them. buildings can be instant icons and be horribly detailed. the success of a building is determined on a macro scale and on how many people get their picture taken in front of it.
Yeah -- that seems a bit self-canceling. Maybe it's meant to be a mandala ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandala
Kind of hard to crit a detail with out seeing the. . .details, isn't it ?
I believe the whirlpool deal is called a "gravity well".
To give a completely unenlightened response. I agree, BMW Rocks!
I don't think it's just German engineering / craftsmanship I think it's the German legal system. Or rather the litigation happy everyone else is responsible for my problems American legal system that results in rather ridiculous measures to cover ones self. Add to that dealing with LAUSD (Los Angeles Unified School District) and their 1950's codes.
As far as the detailing goes... I need to tread careful here.... I believe liability and thereby ultimate responsibility lies with the architect of record.... with whom design consultants aren't always in agreement. Nuff said.
Most of the criticism of the square peg in a round hole (I don't disagree with it being a bit awkward but) I wouldn't consider to be a detail issue, it's a larger scale design issue.
At one point in the project there was a "magic moisture barrier" being worked on, don't know if they got it or not (from the photo of the end it doesn't look like it). But if so the wall doesn't really die into the window. Basically the round metal trim would also be "rain screen". But those details were not finalized when I left, and I wasn't working on that portion of it.
The mismatched panel and window size are not an accident. Coop Himmelblay aint Richard Meier. Likewise with the seemingly "awkward" detailing. I don't think they have an interest in forcing a detail to be a particular way ala Mies, covering up the actual detailing with a fake but pretty detail. In fact I think they go out of their way to do the opposite.
Where's Donny to explain this when I need him? You out there?
Oh and your brackets are on the wrong 'L':
blau = blue
bau = build
It does not rain in LA. Water will not collect.
so psych, i take it you've worked with these guys?
Pretty wild stuff then. I'll say the detailing surprised me at BMW because it wasn't what I was expecting from Coop. Their work always seems to have this "dog chewed on it" effect which in many cases I find endearing, yet when their stuff is actually well-detailed it takes on a new aura. It looks more like a UFO than a building, like it was engineered by aliens, if I may be so corny.
Only a very small amonut of a details sucess can be judged from a photograph. Unless one knows the project most of what is being said here is mindless rhetoric. Jaha's is remark is irresponsible and randar82 has still not defended the position of why this is the worst detail ever.
Who says students have never built anything?
Ah the mild climate of Los Angeles. I don't know if you're serious Appleseed but it's actually a good point. I saw many a detail in LA that you can't get away with in the North West. Many of those could have been described as poor detailing, but I guess if the climate will tolerate it, why over do it?
Apu
I worked in the LA office for a bit.
the square fenestration in the circular opening totally ruins the whole idea of having circular openings in the first place. obviously they are not incapable of cutting circular glass, as they filled the sides with it. it would have been much more impressive to see those openings uninterrupted with a square window.
it's made that much worse becuase not only is it square, it's the exact same window as above. it's like using the same laminate in the kitchen and the bathroom. okay, maybe not that bad, but the least they could have done is picked a simple square piece of glass so it created the least visual damage as possible.
it was all probably a matter of cost. maybe it was intentional. like the giant piece of steel that wraps the entry tower and seems to have no function. it just seems like there should have been a better solution.
While I don't feel the need to justify every move with function. In the spiral's defense it was supposed to be a ramp that takes you up to an observation platform / looking over downtowl Los Angeles. LAUSD was concerned about students on top of the theater and vandalism and all sort of things... if got VE'd out leaving you with a crazy sculpture... last I heard it was back in and it would be an accessible space at the top of the tower. Don't know if that's tru anymore
I agree with you on the square window. I think people were jumping on the criticisim of the "detail" we can't see the actual detail of how that fenestration in the skin is acomplished from these photos (which doesn't seem to be what you're even talking about).
I assume the window needed to be operable. which I think is where the square window came from (this is conjecture though as I wasn't involved in that).
I pass by this thing all too often and have to say many things really bother me about it...
I agree the windows are a huge problem. After you see the depressing buildings in the back with their little prison-like punched openings and and then look back to the front building with the circles, whats the point of them? Are they just a function of visibility from the street? Fair enough, but it seems to be a joke how they are superimposed with the operable windows that are needed... and I don't like the sarcasm...
A part of the building is just a function of visibility. The spectacle part of the building is pushed towards the freeway so everyone sees it driving by. Meanwhile on Sunset Blvd, where foot traffic is the heaviest, they put a parking lot along the street.
what a waste of money (resources), yea its well built
LOL, manu, so putting impressive architecture into the world is a waste?
...you may be right, but then again I've been dedicating my life to waste so far if you are...
somehow i'm with mauone here. i'm not usually squeamish about what gets built and what doesn't and i think the bmw project is a beautiful thing. but it was probably just as beautiful in renderings.
if it had been built to some more useful purpose than the power and glory of bmw i might like it better and resent its use of resources less. i feel the same about unstudios mercedes project and other similar showcases. they're really just resource-intensive advertisements.
i dunno. this kind of project stymies me. it's so beautiful but there's this nagging thing in the back of my mind that totally objects to such obscene decadence/extravagance at this point in our world history.
Does anybody get the feeling that what's getting built today is (among other things) a demonstration of how much design-and-CD time is being saved by the digital revolution ? That some of these sculptural tours-de-force (if that's what they are) would not previously have been affordable ?
Steven, isn't almost all architecture "resource intensive advertisements"?
i would hope that it's ALSO something else. i get the feeling that the bmw project is ONLY....
silverlake
What sarcasm are you refering to?
Also I don't think there's a parking lot (I believe there is a garage under one of the buildings) I think maybe you're referig to the bus turn around / drop off?
Steven, that's what I was thinking. I like this project for its sculptural qualities, from the early renderings on, and am impressed by the physical 'thing' itself. but our interest in the form and quality of construction seems to be disjointed from what this building actually is. functionally its a cross between a suburban car showroom and a theatrical stage set for product launches/cocktail parties, and appears to be successful in that respect. what that has to do with double inverted cones is anyone's guess.
having said that, sustainable issues aside, its hard to begrudge them using the project to push their experimental approach.
Does anyone have a link to the video produced to pitch the to the client? I believed it was an elaborate production using a huge model and tiny cameras...
Thanks!
hey apuri,
Disney land can be called impressive but not really interesting as architecture, to me this is a waste of money and resources just for impressing the media and some general population folks
it IS interesting that Germans will construct anything very well, but that's as far as this project is interesting to me.
I have been looking for the sculpture designed by Tim Prentice which
has been installed in this building. There was a spread in a local rag
about the project but no photos.
i recently visited munich and went over to coop's bmw welt. my expectations were pretty high, seeing as the sketches, drawings and renders of the building were so impressive. also, i'm a biggish fan of their old stuff, the malibu house, the vienna rooftop extension et al.
but strangely enough, once i was standing in the welt, it was rather disappointing. it's just all wrong, very inelegant. the spatial proportions are clunky, the structure is heavier than it ought to be, the roof doesn't really do anything for the weight/lightness of the volume. actually, to me, the roof was the most disappointing thing about the whole building. i somehow always imagined that thickness (and boy, it is thick!) to be inhabitable. but it isn't. or at least, i couldn't work out a way to get up there. it seemed as if its just thick because of the spans across the atrium. shame, i think there was a missed opportunity there.
the circulation is a bit strange, too. it's as if they didn't really think very hard about moving people through the space. and funnily enough (for a coop building at least) there's very little spatial complexity. they've tried to pull off a few swoopy curvey tricks with the ramp and handrail surfaces which just come off as being very amateur. like students playing with rhino for the first time.
that whirlpool/cyclone thing is fricking ugly. the structure is so heavy, it kills the whole effect. too bad.
ok, i admit i'm not being very precise with my analysis of the building. these were all just gut feelings. i was pretty bored after about 15 mins in the building. the whole place felt as if they spent 99% of their design time figuring out how to construct those geometries because, hey, whatever its design shortcomings were, it was very very well put together. ok, i also suppose that the design must have been produced about 5 years ago (practically another technological era), which is maybe why they didn't seem to have too much control over the geometries.
it truly seemed a shame about that roof and the cyclone bit. almost across the street is frei otto's olympic stadium. 30+ years old, similar geometric tricks, but oh so elegant! it's so much more sensitively put together, a real pleasure to walk around in.
in that same trip, i also visited un studio's mercedes museum. now THAT was pretty impressive, and not just because of the cars. they've got that whole continuous-surface-circulation-diagram thing going in the plan of the place, and it works super-well. what i liked most is that after a while, the building just disappeared. in the sense that moving through the spaces is so well knit into the overall curatorial setup that after a while the architecture just dissolves. nice to see a starchitect produce a building thats just not so self-conscious all the time. at least, not from the inside.
another building to keep an eye out for is the porsche museum that's under construction in stuttgaart. i visited the construction site late, when it was already dark and everyone seemed to have gone home for the day. couldn't see very much except for a mega-gigantic raised mat-like building hovering about 10m off the ground on two humongous columns/girders. a poster on the site boundary wall displayed a pretty interesting looking concept render. i can't remember who's designed it, some austrian firm. but it looks like it'll be pretty amazing once its all done.
That's fine TT, i think gut reactions are a huge part of architecture. Its been a while since I've been on this thread but your analysis seems far more relevant than mine seeing how you've actually been there.
BMW, I love that you sponsored TED podcasts. I drove for breast cancer in your roadster, and it was a blast.
Glad to see you have a sense of humor; it looks like a Bangle butt, only bass ackwards.
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