11 automotive museums across Europe

The BMW experience takes place in what can be defined an entire part of the city, rather than a simple building. Right at the foot of the famous “Four cylinders”, the company headquarters, the “Salad Bowl” hosts the BMW Museum, conceived in 1973 By Karl Schwanzer together with the towers, and renovated in 2008 by Atelier Brückner. Crossing the street, visitors can access BMW Welt, home to the contemporary brand experience, where all vehicles by the BMW Group can be discovered, driven, and possibly bought, eventually driving them out of the building through the scenery of the Premiere Ramp down into the streets of Munich. The Museum instead articulates in a 5000 sqm exhibition surface the history of the brand through seven different houses: Design, Company, Motorcycle, Technology, Motorsport, Series, BMW Brand. Temporary exhibitions address contemporary subjects such as e-mobility perspectives, or the cultural presence of the brand, and a specific space is dedicated to BMW Art Cars, realized by some of the most famous artists in the world.      Photo © BMW AG

Photo © BMW AG

Photo © BMW AG

Photo © BMW AG

Photo © BMW AG

Photo © BMW AG

Autostadt is a city per se, as announced by its name: it opened in 2000 close to the Volkswagen manufacturing plant in Wolfsburg, on a masterplan by Henn GmBH, deeply influenced by hi-tech fascinations of 1990s German architectural scene. It is in fact dominated by the two glass-and-steel Car Towers, where cars are stacked and delivered to final customers by a robotized system. All around, a real theme park, an interactive landscape project, gathers the brand pavilions of the entire Audi-VW group, a hotel, test-drive and simulation areas, environmental installations such as the Scent Tunnel by Olafur Eliasson, and the Zeithaus (House of time), a museum conceived as a time shelf where a multi-brand collection is arranged, showcasing a selection of motorized mobility milestones.

Photo: Editoriale Domus

Photo: Editoriale Domus

A milestone of parametric architecture, the museum completed in 2006 by UNstudio provides a unique experience which is largely based on its spatial and structural features, developed as a constant flow through the geometric figure of the double helix.
The curving ramps lead the visitor through the discovery of the operational design environment of Mercedes, then through brand history and thematic collections of vehicles, to finally culminate in the highly emotional installation dedicated to the motorsport endeavors of the “Silver Arrows”, the legendary racing cars from Stuttgart. 

Photo © Mercedes-Benz AG

Photo © Mercedes-Benz AG

Photo © Mercedes-Benz AG

Un monolite volante segnala la presenza di Porsche a Zuffenhausen, nei pressi di Stoccarda, una struttura da 25800 metri quadri concepita dallo studio viennese Delugan Meissl, vincitore di un concorso bandito nel 2005. Il Porsche Museum è un museo-scultura, il cui allestimento si basa molto sul l'uso degli oggetti-auto come mezzo per raccontare idee, oltre che una storia che si snoda dalla prima 356 Roadster del 1948 a oggi, passando per i modelli vincitori della 24 Ore di Le Mans e le collaborazioni con marchi quali Audi e Mercedes-Benz. Photo © Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG

Photo: Markus Leser

Photo: Markus Leser

Since its opening in 2009, this brand new pole of the Ferrari experience has become a reference for an increasingly vast public. The restored birthplace of Ferrari’s founder Enzo Ferrari, and his father’s workshop, have been integrated by a single-span structure, covered by Modena yellow aluminum roof whose openings are echoing the air intakes of early Prancing Horse models. The continuous interior space is a white-textured environment, punctuated by the cars from Ferrari collection, turning into an all-direction projection at given times, dedicated to the people who made the brand legendary through the years.  Photo: Editoriale Domus

Photo: Editoriale Domus

Photo: Editoriale Domus

Photo: Editoriale Domus

One of the last ideas of Ferrari’s founder Enzo Ferrari was to create a place to  celebrate the achievements of his House: the Galleria Ferrari opened in 1990 — two years after Enzo’s death — close to the Maranello manufacturing plant. In 2018 the new museum design by Benedetto Camerana,integrating the spaces of a new building extension, has reorganized the spaces dedicated to the narration of the Ferrari mythology, mostly by temporary thematic exhibitions (their setting was often created by leading figures such as Patricia Urquiola). The Maranello “sanctuary” is actually including a wider experience, appreciated by enthusiasts from all over the world: the chance to visit the so-called Cittadella, the Ferrari research and production complex with its architectures signed by — among others — Jean Nouvel, Renzo Piano Building Workshop, Marco Visconti, Massimiliano Fuksas.
Photo: Editoriale Domus

Photo: Editoriale Domus

Photo: Editoriale Domus

An absolute priority for the Arese museum, reopened in 2015, has been the valorization of a powerful mythology gathering thousands of fans (called Alfisti) since decades. This is one of the reasons why the new museum, designed by Camerana & partners, has developed inside the pre-existing Museo Alfa Romeo, conceived in 1976 by Milanese architects Vito and Gustavo Latis as a part to the manufacturing and management center, still operating at the time. Within the modernist split-level structure, the new museum design brings in the distinctive brand signs, the Rosso Alfa iconic red painting, a full-height installation dedicated to the Alfa DNA, an exhibition path moving through Timeline, Beauty and Speed providing a dense experience completed by a documentation center and a testing race track.  Photo ©Museo Storico Alfa romeo

Photo ©Museo Storico Alfa Romeo

Photo ©Museo Storico Alfa Romeo

One of the forecomers of its own typology, the Turin Automotive Museum has lived two distinct lives marked by two radically different concepts. Started as a showcase historic collection for the Italian Motor City, hosted in the sober modern spaces designed in 1960 by Amedeo Albertini, a pure combination of natural daylight and reflections from car bodies, the Mauto turned to a completely narrative approach with the new museum design by François Confino, realized in 2011 for the 150^th anniversary of Italian Unity, together with the architectural redesign by Cino Zucchi. The 150-vehicle collection is organized by sceneries and dioramas (and an open garage, to be visited upon request) to engagingly outline the multiple social and cultural changes that were brought by the presence of automobiles through the last one and a half centuries. The fertile professional context of Turin area (and an important documentation center including a library, an archive and a large periodicals collection) provide a stimulating ground for frequent temporary exhibitions, dedicated to fundamentals stories and eras of international car design and its leading personalities.  Photo: Editoriale Domus

Photo: Editoriale Domus

Photo: Editoriale Domus

One of the most important automotive museums worldwide was born in fact as a private collection, made of historic, mostly European, vehicles gathered during the 60s by the Schlumpf brother in a secluded area of the wool mill they owned. The enormous collection, 437 pieces so far, spans from pioneering models such as early De Dion and Benz, to racing champions such as the 1957 Maserati 250F and 1965 Lotus 33, encompassing the luxury of  Rolls Royce and Panhard-Levassor, the groundbreaking innovations by Citroën and most of all a unique and world-famous Bugatti section. The Schlumpf fled to Switzerland as their company was facing hard times, leaving the museum they had opened, a 17000 sqm space patterned with post-Haussmann-style streetlamps: after long controversies with unions, in 1981 the Musée Nationale de l’Automobile was created from the existing one, and in 2006 new works transformed the venue in a proper city. The Cité de l’Automobile - Collection Schlumpf opens in fact to the post-industrial premises hosting the museum, to the surrounding urban context with cultural and inclusive programs, and once again to the public, allowing them to a weekly show where vehicles from the collection can be seen in action on a real racing track.  Photo: © Culturespaces E. Spiller

Photo: © Culturespaces S. Lloyd

Photo: © Culturespaces S. Lloyd

This flamboyant private collection has been patiently assembled during decades by the Louwman family (former Dodge importers for the Netherlands) since 1934, and in its case the content-container relationship has  a paramount importance. Through its 275-vehicle exhibition, the Louwman Museum does not aim to provide a statement on historical methodology, but “a clear and fascinating overview of the history of the motor car”, conveyed by “a well-balanced collection of motor vehicles”. Halfway between a classic museum and a cabinet de curiosités, visitors can find in these spaces the 1897 three-wheel Benz and James Bond’s Aston Martin DB5, the Talbot Lago and the Jaguar D-type, the Dutch Spyker And the Medici prototype by Italdesign for Maserati. Such cross-typological and postmodernist approach is  hosted inside an appropriately postmodern architecture, combining different languages including hints of Neogothic, designed by Michel Graves in 2010.

Photo: © Louwman Museum

Photo: © Louwman Museum

Photo: © Louwman Museum

Some Moderns used to consider cars as a part of what was called the synthesis of Arts: this exhibition center, nested amidst the Swiss Alps of Valais, represents the this concept at its best. The Gianadda foundation opened in 1978, as a vast park punctuated with sculptures by Calder, Brancusi, Miró, de Saint Phalle and Tàpies among others, surrounding a sculptural brutalist building, home to several international art exhibitions, to an archaeology museum and — last but not  least — to a collection of 50 vehicles (dal 1897 al 1939) where Swiss rarities stand out, side by side with Bugatti, Rolls Royce, Isotta Fraschini and Hispano-Suiza.  Photo: Editoriale Domus

Photo: Editoriale Domus

Photo: Editoriale Domus