An all-glass building is rising in the centre of historic Dresden. Designed by one of Germany鈥檚 leading architects, it is not an office block or an institution, but a car factory.
Volkswagen鈥檚 拢75m Gl盲serne Manufaktur will be more than just a building where automobiles are assembled. The company likes to call it an 鈥渆vent centre鈥� 鈥� a place where the public will come to spend a day, where buyers will watch their car being made and where, VW hopes, visitors will be subtly converted into customers.
鈥淰W is doing this to open itself up to potential customers, to help them build a better relationship with the company when they are buying a car and when they are not buying a car,鈥� explains the architect, Munich-based Gunther Henn. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e communicating their products not just in a technical way 鈥� engine size, number of airbags 鈥� but in an emotional way.鈥�
When it opens next year, the plant will produce VW鈥檚 new, top-of-the-range D1. The company knew it would take more than just a great car to gain market share in a sector dominated by BMW and Mercedes-Benz, and the factory is as important to its strategy as the 拢50 000 vehicle itself. Customers will be made to feel they are commissioning a work of art instead of buying a product. 鈥淚t鈥檚 like when you go to visit an artist and you see how he produces the sculpture,鈥� says Henn. 鈥淎t Dresden, you will see the production line.鈥�
By placing the factory in the middle of Dresden, Henn is reinventing the car plant as a civilised urban component rather than a sprawl of edge-of-town sheds. Dresdeners will be encouraged to wander through the complex, visit the exhibitions and restaurants and watch the assembly line through the glass walls as if it were theatre. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a paradigm of structure and event: the structure of the building and the event of car-making,鈥� says Henn.
This melting of the boundaries between car-buying and car-making, between the factory and the city, is part of VW鈥檚 wider strategy to set itself apart from its rivals. To survive in an increasingly cut-throat market, the car manufacturer 鈥� the third largest in the world 鈥� is turning transparency into its corporate signature.
Over the next five years, it will spend an incredible 拢20bn on new models and buildings, with architecture increasingly being employed as a means of connecting with customers. Henn believes that no other company in the world can match the ambition of VW鈥檚 strategy. He says only Nike, which is building a chain of Nike Town outlets in major cities worldwide, comes close.
Henn feels that as the Internet takes over as the source of hard information about products such as cars, companies will increasingly need to create touchy-feely places where people can connect emotionally with the goods. 鈥淲e are not happy having just the virtual world. We will need locations that are selling without selling 鈥� you don鈥檛 sell your products, you sell your vision and philosophy.鈥�
Other German car makers agree. Opel and Mercedes-Benz have already opened their factories to the public and BMW plans to open a 鈥渃ar world鈥� in Munich. But VW is going much, much further. It has already put its strategy into practice at Autostadt, the world鈥檚 first car theme park, which opened last month at its vast factory complex at Wolfsburg in Lower Saxony.
The park was also masterplanned by Henn, who claims it is just as revolutionary as the Dresden factory. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a new urban form,鈥� he says. 鈥淰W is the first company which is combining urban place, theme park, marketing and manufacturing. Autostadt is part of the city; it鈥檚 a theme park about automobility; it鈥檚 a brand-land all at the same time,鈥� says Henn. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 not like Disneyland. It鈥檚 authentic. You see, smell and feel that it鈥檚 a production area.鈥�
The 拢280m park contains a car museum, a five-star hotel, caf茅s, restaurants and pavilions dedicated to VW subsidiaries, all set among 25 ha of landscaped gardens and lakes. Henn brought in architects from all over Europe to express the diverse spirits of the brands in the VW stable, which include Bentley, Audi and Skoda. London architect Ray Hole鈥檚 pavilion for Bentley is exquisitely crafted in polished green granite and half-buried in a turfed hillock, while Spaniard Alfredo Arribas鈥� wavy Seat pavilion is clad in dazzling white ceramic and surrounded by water.
鈥淭he architecture you see here reflects the design values of our products, mixed with the philosophy of our company. It鈥檚 a summary of our culture,鈥� says Autostadt product development director Wolfgang M眉ller-Pietralla. Naturally, this means a lot of glass, both in the visitor facilities and the staff-only areas. Transparency is forcing workers to sharpen up: 鈥淧eople here must now work in a different way. They can鈥檛 pick their noses any more.鈥�
As at Dresden, buying a car becomes an architectural experience. Cars roll off the production line into two 50 m high glass cylinders where they await collection. When the customer arrives, the vehicle is automatically transferred via lifts and conveyors to a collection centre 鈥� all glass, naturally 鈥� where final checking and valeting is carried out. An alcohol-free caf茅 overlooking the valeting area offers drivers a choice of 40 different mineral waters.
The attention to detail throughout the park is quite exceptional, particularly inside the brand pavilions, which range from the surreal to the preposterous without ever resorting to automotive clich茅 or corporate sloganeering.
The Lamborghini pavilion, for example, is pure testosterone: a four-storey black box containing nothing more than a yellow Diablo caged like a wild animal. During the most deafening son et lumi猫re you will ever see, the car spits, screams and belches smoke 鈥� and then disappears.
By contrast, Volkswagen鈥檚 own pavilion uses architectural purity 鈥� a metal sphere inside a glass cube 鈥� to express the brand as an abstract concept. Inside the sphere, a breathtaking multimedia show tells the story of a girl who learns to play the violin. The subliminal message is that car design, like a musical instrument, takes a long time to master. Cars are never mentioned.
鈥淚t鈥檚 something pure and sovereign,鈥� says Nick Swallow of Furneaux Stewart, the London creative agency that worked with Henn on the pavilion. 鈥淭he message has very little to do with crash test dummies and crumple zones, and everything to do with spirit.鈥�
VW鈥檚 strategy is unbelievably brave but not without its risks, Swallow adds. 鈥淭he risk is that people might not 鈥榞et it鈥� right away. But cars are increasingly in danger of being seen as commodities. People want to feel their car is more than an object. Manufacturers are wising up to this fact 鈥� and architecture is the perfect way of expressing it.鈥�
M眉ller-Pietralla is less esoteric. 鈥淭his is not just a place for people to have fun. From a commercial point of view, we have won if we can win the hearts of non-VW drivers. That鈥檚 the reason we鈥檙e doing it.鈥�
