
Near the
Olympiapark are the
headquarters of Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (
BMW),
the largest company in the north of Munich.
Founded in 1913, BMW started building airplane engines in 1917.
In 1923, BMW started building motorbikes and eventually
in 1928 they started with the production of cars.
Shortly after the Second World War, BMW's factories were dismantled by the Allied Forces and the company was only allowed to manufacture household utensils and bycicles.

In 1950 BMW returned to the production of cars. After a slow start, the company focused on luxury cars, becoming one of the most admired carmakers in the world.
The main attraction for the hundreds of thousands of visitors
that visit BMW yearly is the four-cilinder BMW-tower
and the bowl-shaped BMW-museum next to it.
The museum
displays the technical development of the car and motorcycles,
together with the history of BMW itself. Many old cars
and motorcycles are on display and there are also films
and videos on display in English.
The highlight is the
spectacular cinemascope

show on automobile history. The museum is now temporarily in a nearby building due to renovations to the original museum building.
The
main building itself, officially called the BMW-verwaltungsgebäude
(BMW administrative building), was designed by the Viennese
architect K. Schwarzer after a four-cylinder engine
and was completed in 1972, just before the olympics
took place in Munich.