The forum themed “The Future of Chinese Cultural Architecture” fully sponsored by BMW, along with the exhibition “Collision of Spirit and Flesh: A Century of Chinese Cultural Architecture”, successfully concluded at the Contemporary Art Museum of the China Millennium Monument. The forum attracted over 300 professionals from the architecture and cultural fields, and the four-day exhibition received more than 20,000 visitors.
 The cultural architecture discussed at this event refers to buildings primarily designed for cultural dissemination, such as museums, art galleries, libraries, concert halls, and theaters. Today, China has become the world's second-largest economy, and tremendous economic changes have gradually transformed society, culture, and ideology; architecture, as a carrier of culture, portrays today's China to the world. Through this event, BMW hopes to guide people to review and reflect on the century-long development of Chinese cultural architecture and to explore its future in the context of contemporary urbanization.

Five experts in architecture and culture attended the forum and delivered keynote speeches, including renowned architectural design expert Prof. Preston Scott Cohen, former Dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and holder of the Gerald M. McCue Professorship; Mr. Wang Mingxian, expert in New China art studies and Deputy Director of the Institute of Architectural Art at the Chinese National Academy of Arts; and Mr. Liang Jingyu, one of the leaders of the Qianmen Dashilan cultural community renovation in Beijing and a renowned urban researcher.

Starting from September 10, the exhibition “Collision of Spirit and Flesh: A Century of Chinese Cultural Architecture” opened prior to the forum. The Shanghai BMW Brand Experience Center, located next to the China Art Museum in the Shanghai Expo Park, was honored to be selected as a representative cultural building for the exhibition. The curator of the exhibition, the international Chinese edition of the professional architectural design magazine Domus, commented: “BMW designed and built this brand experience center with an attitude of humility and respect. This corporate-led cultural building blends with the overall atmosphere of the Shanghai Expo Park and can be regarded as a representative case of the perfect integration of foreign commercial culture and local culture in the construction of urban cultural communities.”
 Mr. Nicholas Ott, designer of the Shanghai BMW Brand Experience Center and Senior Manager of Architectural Design at BMW Brilliance Automotive Ltd., spoke about his design concept: “Facing the China Art Museum, the first word that came to my mind was ‘respect’. I wanted to use this transparent building to reflect BMW's thorough consideration of cultural inclusiveness; BMW is not just building a structure in front of the China Art Museum to showcase the brand's history and culture, but adding a platform for cross-cultural exchange to the entire Expo Park.”

With its unique design concept, the Shanghai BMW Brand Experience Center won three prestigious international design awards this year: the 2013 Red Dot Design Award in the “Communication Design” category, and the 2013 Automotive Brand Contest organized by the German Design Council, winning the “Best Architecture” award and the “Architecture - Events and Exhibitions” category award.

In addition to showcasing the Shanghai BMW Brand Experience Center in the Shanghai Expo Park, the exhibition “Collision of Spirit and Flesh: A Century of Chinese Cultural Architecture” also presented five other cultural community construction cases: the Shanghai Museum of Glass, Qianmen Dashilan Community, Shenzhen Dafen Village, Chengdu Blue Roof Art District, and Shenzhen Dalang Workshop, demonstrating practices in other regions during urbanization. These projects take culture as the “spirit” and architecture as the “flesh”, ingeniously embedding cultural buildings into urban and rural areas, injecting new energy into surrounding areas and communities, and creating new urban communities rich in cultural texture. These cases represent innovative attempts through which Chinese cultural architecture can contribute ideas to the world.

To match the cultural and design atmosphere of the exhibition, BMW specially presented the BMW 6 Series Gran Coupe——the first four-door coupe in BMW's history. Its elegant and dynamic streamlined appearance fully interprets its unique, forward-looking, and stylish stunning beauty. The BMW 6 Series Gran Coupe not only won the “Highest Design Quality Award” at the 2012 Red Dot Product Design Awards, known as the “Oscars of the design world”, but also received the globally recognized “GOOD DESIGN™” award, one of the most authoritative and prestigious honors in the field of product design.
As an automotive brand with a deep sense of cultural responsibility, BMW has always been committed to promoting exchanges between different cultures and regards cross-cultural innovation as a key part of its corporate citizenship strategy. In particular, over the past 40 years, BMW has participated in more than 100 cultural cooperation projects worldwide. In all projects, BMW strives to ensure absolute freedom of innovation and design. BMW in China has also been committed to integrating with local culture, initiating and sponsoring numerous cultural and artistic activities covering cultural heritage protection, music, painting, sculpture, and film, hoping to awaken public enthusiasm for culture and art through cultural promotion practices.