BMW Museum
A silver circular tower nicknamed the "salad bowl" holds 120 exhibits tracing BMW from aircraft engines to concept cars that never reached a showroom.
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Designed by Viennese architect Karl Schwanzer — who also designed the BMW Headquarters — the 1973 building has a circular base just 20 meters across that widens to a 40-meter roofline. Inside, 5,000 square meters covers BMW's full technical arc: engines, turbines, aircraft, motorcycles, and speculative concept studies from the past two decades, not just the cars.
What to look for
- The building's proportions from outside — a 20 m base almost doubling to a 40 m flat roof, the silver exterior earning it the nickname 'white cauldron'
- Aircraft and motorcycle exhibits alongside the cars — the collection extends well beyond four wheels
- Conceptual studies: speculative designs from the past 20 years that were built but never put into production
BMW Welt is directly opposite the museum — both sites share the same location, making a combined visit straightforward.
BMW Museum is one of 37 sights worth the detour in Munich, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Munich pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Munich
- Allianz ArenaThe world's first stadium with a full color-changing exterior — 75,000 seats wrapped in inflated ETFE plastic panels that can change color across the entire facade.
- Deutsches Museum125,000 objects across 50 fields of science and technology — all on a former coal island in the Isar.
- Nymphenburg PalaceAt 632 metres across, this Baroque summer palace is wider than Versailles — and it started as a birth announcement.
- Alte PinakothekThe gallery that taught Europe how to build a museum — then filled it with five centuries of Old Masters.
- FrauenkircheThe twin towers top out at just over 98 meters — Munich caps the entire city at 99 m, so nothing can overtake them on the skyline.
- Englischer GartenA Massachusetts-born American Loyalist, fleeing Britain after the Revolution, drew up plans for what became one of the world's largest urban parks.