The BMW Group design team invites visitors to their installation “A Creative’s Journey”, timed to coincide with the Salone del Mobile. The idea is to accompany designers on their quest to find creative solutions for tomorrow’s mobility. The installation not only provides insights into BMW Design’s creative process, but also serves as a meeting place, encouraging visitors to pause and linger. Milan’s Salone del Mobile is an important source of inspiration for BMW designers every year and is also vital for networking and sharing ideas with creatives from other disciplines, such as fashion, architecture and the arts.
BMW Design – bringing together the new and seemingly contradictory.
Staying true to the historic roots and iconic design of the BMW brand, BMW designers approach the future with positive new thinking. “In a volatile world, we aim to face the future with a positive mindset. BMW has always tried to reconcile apparent contradictions: elegance and sportiness, efficiency and dynamic performance, sustainability and luxury. The unique creativity of the designers turns this into an emotional experience for our customers,” according to Domagoj Dukec, head of BMW Design.
Being open to new ideas and striving for the perfect solution are a common thread throughout BMW Design’s “A Creative’s Journey” installation. The entrance portal, flanked on both sides by columns, resembles a car wash – symbolising the start of the creative process, in which designers rid themselves of all restrictive thinking that could influence their creativity. This is the only way for them to open up to unconventional inspiration and completely reinvent themselves.
The inner courtyard symbolises the situation in which designers find themselves at the start of the task: Rooted in the history of the BMW brand, they take a close look at the present and consider the social issues of tomorrow. The centrepiece of the installation, the BMW Design Sculpture, reflects this – taking the iconic exterior design of the BMW 3.0 CSL from 1973 and making it into a modern sculpture.
Courtyard seating invites visitors to pause for a few moments. The seats feature inspiring text fragments that reflect BMW Design’s thinking: facing the future with optimism and empathy. The courtyard is also designed as a meeting place where BMW Design interacts with visitors, exploring new ideas and a history steeped in tradition, as well as objects of inspiration and the process of creation.
Human-centric design – holistic approach transforms the car of tomorrow into an oasis of well-being.
Inside the installation, the visitor embarks on a journey through various design disciplines. Innovative and sustainable worlds of colour and materials, interior and exterior artwork, sculptures, design concepts and exhibits that serve as inspiration for designers in the creative discovery process illustrate BMW Design’s holistic approach: creating products and experiences with a human-centric design that appeal to all the senses. At the heart of it all is the question of which design requirements will have to be met in the future to make the vehicle a real “favourite place”.
Finally, the “Phygital Experience”, which fuses the physical and the digital, demonstrates the seamless transition between technology and art. The interactive installation transforms the vehicle model into a dynamic canvas and provides a hands-on experience of how vehicles will interact with humans in an emotionally engaging and personalised manner in the future. The installation also represents the evolution of the BMW Design principle from “form follows function” to “form follows experience”. This means human perception and not the function itself is ultimately the key factor in design decisions.
“A Creative’s Journey” by BMW Design opens as part of the Salone del Mobile from 18-23 April and can be visited from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the new House of BMW at Via Monte Napoleone 12.
