Though Leipzig has fared slightly better than other former GDR cities, unemployment is still around 20 per cent and since reunification its population has decreased by some 100 000 (nearly a fifth). The half hour drive out northwards from the centre of Leipzig to the plant on its brownfield site takes you through a carious, post-industrial landscape of derelict factories and deserted streets. Yet on the northern fringe there are stirrings of revival - a new airport, motorway, the Trade Fair complex dominated by lan Ritchie’s great glazed Messehalle (AR March 1996) and, of course, BMW, whose largesse and ambition has provided the area with 5500 new jobs.
Programatically, the Central Building is a modern chimera - part showcase, part offices, part laboratory, part canteen. Drawing together these different aspects, it also mediates between factory floor and office, between white collar and blue collar, and between product and process. A key aim was organisational transparency, achieved by a fluid layering and interpenetration of space, so that people are aware of other kinds of activities going on around them.
Most especially they are aware of overhead conveyors that snake around the building at ceiling height ferrying car bodies from one production department to another. As this regimented line of gleaming ghost cars glides silently past cascading terraces of open plan offices and the staff canteen (democratically shared by workers and management), there could be no more overt reminder of collective purpose.