The inauguration of the new Audi Forum Ingolstadt represented more than simply the completion of one of the major Audi construction projects of the past ten years: the opening of its new discovery and service centre on 15 December 2000, immediately outside the factory gates in Ingolstadt, signalled the start of a new era of customer and visitor care at Audi.
In its first year the Audi Forum Ingolstadt has taken on a “flagship function” for the company. It represents both a modern form of self-projection and a new strain of industrial culture: with this combination of a museum, customer service, factory tours, new-vehicle collection facilities, gastronomic delights and tourism services, Audi has added a new facet to the brand experience and thus to the brand’s reputation through architecturally stimulating facilities that will be used by customers, visitors and employees alike. The Audi Forum Ingolstadt is entertaining, informative and evocative; even more so, it gives visual expression to the increasingly outgoing approach of the Ingolstadt-based company. It reflects Audi’s transparency and openness, and heralds Audi’s claim to be the most attractive European brand on the world market. Audi projects an authentic, sentient, personal profile, striving to tailor the service it provides for every customer or visitor to their individual requirements.
The Audi Forum Ingolstadt, on a site measuring around 77,000 square metres, comprises various architecturally distinctive buildings, each with typifying design elements that reflect their specific function - with the museum mobile at the very centre. The numerous individual components nevertheless possess the character of a harmonious ensemble, with the spacious piazza that is reminiscent of Mediterranean climates both uniting and segmenting the various functional zones (see “The architectural experience” for further details).
The Audi Forum Ingolstadt is made up of the following buildings and architectural elements:
· museum mobile: the remarkable car and motorcycle museum with a name that reflects its very essence;
· Customer Center: opened in 1992 for customers collecting their new car in person; this was the first building to adopt the Audi hangar principle, pioneering the corporate identity architecture for Audi dealerships;
· The two buildings are connected by a Mövenpick Marché restaurant and the elegant “Avus” restaurant, together with the central reception;
· “Market and Customer”: the office and service building which opened in 1999, housing a wide range of service facilities;
· The piazza: the spacious area that serves as a stage for events, campaigns and communication between the brand and its visitors, bordered by the museum mobile, reception and catering zone and Customer Center on one side and by the “Market and Customer” building on the other, and dotted with numerous plane trees;
· Piazzetta: a small park in which to relax, wind down and enjoy the greenery, water features and lawns.
The museum mobile, a round building over 22 metres high representing an investment of around DM 45 million, is the main attraction of the Audi Forum Ingolstadt, and is visible from a long way off. The museum mobile represents the idea of “change through motion”. It establishes the link between past, present and future, and shows how the modern-day Audi brand has evolved from the forerunner brands (Audi, DKW, Horch, Wanderer and NSU) with refreshing variety and in an entertaining manner, without any hint of dreary documentation.
With its fully glazed facades, around which large sunscreens rotate in a 24-hour cycle, the museum building symbolises the transparency and openness of the Ingolstadt-based company. Both elements demonstrate “Vorsprung durch Technik”: 
immediately next to the main entrance, a permanently rotating paternoster elevator laden with exhibits links the various levels of the museum mobile. The paternoster’s 14 high-tech platforms keeps prototypes from Audi’s history in perpetual motion. It allows vehicles to be presented in a particularly dynamic way; these are visible from outside the building from some distance.
Motion is also the leitmotif of the permanent exhibition in the museum mobile, which comprises more than 50 cars and 30 motorcycles and bicycles: on the two upper floors, “moving walls” symbolise the incessant progression of time and history. The walls, with the same curvature as the outside walls, depict general historical events along a time line.
Two electronically controlled rotating walls per exhibition level pass through each of the individual presentation areas once an hour. These large-format wall surfaces move along rails recessed into the ceiling and floor. This gives visitors to the museum mobile a sense of continuous motion and of the relentless progression of history.
Even motionless exhibits thus appear to be on the move, for example the “hovering” motorcycles: a number of two-wheelers are suspended in the space above the stairways in such a way that they appear to be captured in motion. Visitors to the museum mobile can also play an active part themselves: several multimedia exhibits present technology in an entertaining manner.
In following what is a circuit in the most literal sense of the word, the visitor is barely aware of being guided and steered through the museum. Thanks to the logical arrangement, the visitor automatically follows chronological developments that trace 100 years of Audi, taking in exhibits of cars and motorcycles that have been chosen because of their rarity, luxury, elegance or immense popularity. Additional information is supplied via electronic media. There is also a seven-minute introductory film showing in the cinema (level 0) of the museum mobile.
Considerable importance is attached to presenting the historic cars and motorcycles vividly. The highlights undoubtedly include the pre-war Auto Union racing cars: for example, the legendary Auto Union Type C/D 16-cylinder hill-climb racing car from 1939, with its giant double rear wheels,or the Auto Union Type C “Avus” Streamliner from 1937, which was lost during the war; the authentic replica on display has been painstakingly built by specialists in England.
Other fascinating specimens on show include a Horch 853 (1937), a Horch 670 with 12-cylinder engine (1932), a Wanderer W 25 K (1937), a DKW Front (1932) and the dainty Wanderer “Puppchen” (1923) (see the chapter “Two-wheel and four-wheel highlights in the museum mobile” for a complete list of exhibits and descriptions of certain highlights).
The circular shape of the museum mobile is the result of deliberations on the ideal way to present the theme: Audi held a competition to find the best concept, which was supplied by the Munich agency KMS with a proposal entitled “Tree Rings”. The idea of tree rings is based on the principle of the tree trunk as the stable core, with new rings growing around it each year to symbolise growth, stability and change.
The design by architect and master-planner Gunter Henn (who also designed the former Audi Center back in 1992 and was responsible for the overall planning of the Audi Forum Ingolstadt) highlights further advantages of the round building: as the visitors to the museum travel through history, they are drawn into a “time spiral”. Starting in the year 1899 on level 3 of the museum, they gradually progress downwards towards the present day, with post-war history beginning on level 2.
Finally, level 1 is dedicated to a further form of motion and change: this space is available for temporary exhibitions and will also be used for cultural events and campaigns. This level hosted the opening festivities for the Audi Forum Ingolstadt (for details and further information, see “museum mobile sets standards”). In 2001 it provided the venue for concerts, as part of the annual “Summer Concerts between Danube and Altmühl” series, for example. Between events temporary exhibitions can be viewed on this level. These have included “arTT”, for example, which showed the Audi TT from the point of view of famous artists, and the exhibition “A2 - lightweight construction at Audi”. The temporary exhibition “Childhood on the move - pedal cars for children” is open here from December 2001 until February 2002.
Only slightly shorter than the museum mobile at 22 metres, the “Market and Customer” building, which was officially opened on 8 September 1999, demonstrates the importance that Audi attaches to customer care and the service philosophy. The triangular building with a glazed south-facing facade, erected at a cost of around DM 70 million, houses over 600 employees from the Sales, Marketing and Public Relations departments, as well as various services for Audi customers and visitors in its spacious foyer, whose glazed surfaces lend it an air of transparency.
Various service providers are based in the service zone in the atrium: Audi Bank direct, the insurance service VWV, the Audi Personnel Service, the Employees’ Vehicle Centre and a travel agency.
The building’s architecture, by the Düsseldorf architects BM P (Beucker Maschlanka und Partner), again symbolises “Vorsprung durch Technik”. With the building’s environment-friendly air conditioning system, the air inside is kept constantly pleasant - and transparency is once again used here as a means of expressing the receptive, open corporate culture of the Ingolstadt-based company (see “The architectural experience” for further details).
In addition to the discovery and educational aspects of the museum mobile and the service emphasis of the “Market and Customer” building, Audi is setting further trends in creating a new form of experiential gastronomy: in conjunction with the renowned Swiss company Mövenpick Gastronomy International, an appetising quartet of gastronomic establishments has been accommodated in the connecting building between the museum mobile and the Customer Center:
· The “Bar & Lounge”, which serves exquisite drinks, snacks and coffee specialities;
· The market-place restaurant “Marché”, with its imaginative cuisine focusing on fresh produce;
· The elegant full-service restaurant “Avus”, serving exclusive lunches and dinners;
· The “Wine Shop”, stocking select wines for connoisseurs.
These facilities are aimed at those collecting their new Audi in person, visitors to the plant and company employees. “Marché” and “Avus” moreover add a new dimension to the Ingolstadt restaurant scene. They are also open to locals as an enticing venue for a business lunch or elegant dinner (see “Range of services” for detailed information).
Customers collecting their new car in person, visitors to the plant and those touring both Ingolstadt and the region, together with regional tourism as a whole, will benefit from a further new feature of the Ingolstadt Audi Forum: in conjunction with the travel company Travel24.com, Audi has developed a new tourism programme. It is based on the fact that Ingolstadt is located within striking distance of what is Germany’s largest nature park, and also one of the most scenic: the Altmühl Valley, which is as yet almost unknown outside Bavaria.
The direct collection service established in 1992 and based in the Customer Center has streamlined its processes to coincide with the opening of the new Audi Forum Ingolstadt, in order to improve customer satisfaction still further and to encourage visitors to spend longer at Audi and in Ingolstadt. Around 63,000 vehicles were handed over here in 2001, between 250 and 300 a day.
Before the Audi Forum Ingolstadt opened, most customers coming to Ingolstadt to collect their new car only planned a day trip, generally remaining at Audi between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. They now tend to stay considerably longer. In addition to a factory tour, attractions include the museum mobile, the Mövenpick restaurants, a visit to the “Market and Customer” building and a tourism programme tailored to the individual preferences of every visitor.
Audi customers and visitors who make use of the services on offer at the Audi Forum Ingolstadt thus benefit in several respects: they discover the background and subtext to Audi’s history in a welcoming, individual atmosphere, they get to know “their” brand from an entirely new perspective, and they enjoy a visit lasting one or more days that can truly be described as “memorable”.
The Audi Forum Ingolstadt in addition reflects Audi’s commitment to the region and to the city of Ingolstadt, and generates fresh momentum. The new Audi Forum Ingolstadt is thus more than simply a corporate “flagship” facility; it embodies a new industrial culture that encompasses more than simply production and sales. Around 400,000 visitors in the first twelve months - including 250,000 to the museum mobile alone - have taken advantage of this to date.
[source: audi-mediaservices.com]
Related articles:
- 75th anniversary of the four rings
- Over 15 million Audi models in 40 years
- Audi Tradition celebrates 25 years of Sport quattro
- An Audi for the year 2035: In “I, ROBOT” Will Smith races in an Audi RSQ Sports Coupe
- Test driving the Audi Q7: Vehicle durability test from southern Africa to the Nürburgring
Entries (RSS)