Ben Kraal

First, let it be said that I like the Chris Bangle designed BMWs. Yes, they generally look like nothing special in photos but see them moving on the street and they are, from most angles, elegant, taught and just a bit out there. They are not the Armani-smooth cars of the E36 3-series era. They’re a lot more Jean-Paul Gaultier. Chris Bangle was recently interviewed by design & emotion. Asked about car design, he said:

One way to consider the change it heralded is to look at a detail like the door openers inside the car…sounds pretty insignificant, don’t you think? But until this car came along forms, particularly technical forms like handles, were created following formal rules and vocabularies from the Great Age of Modernism…in short, within the limits of the geometries of the Twenties. That is why you used to see so much knurled aluminium, because the lathe was one of the Machine Age standards back then used to break away from the naturalistic shapes of Art Neveu and other humanistic styles that came before. But we live in the Digital age, which means that 5-Axis milling is more representative of our times than a lathe. Look at the shapes of the X Coupe, starting with the door openers and going out all the way to the exterior (asymmetry and all) of the exterior…do you see the free flow of surface pulled into tension over the spline ridges?

Umm.. Chris… they’re still handles that you pull out from the door. What about buttons that you push in or handles that you lift up? I get the feeling that Bangle is really all about how it looks, and the process by which you achieve something really pretty, not how it works.

Case in point:

But with the computer we have a fantastic enabler in our hands that has lain dormant due to the conservative pressure of Modernist Geometries on our imaginations. In this sense, as usual, the architects were way ahead of us.

Desgin and Emotion throw a bit of a Dorothy Dixer his way and ask him about the Z4 and how he said it was “a turning point in car design, away from pure rationalism into rationalism-based emotionalism”. After going on about architecture and the “conservative pressure of modernism” he says:

The Z4 was the precursor to all this, but because of the rhythm of Show Cars to Production Cars the X Coupe was seen first. Look at the crossing of splines through the car, implying a sub structure at work, a skeleton on the move pulling the skin into tension. Notice the diagonal of the extended A Pillar with a shockingly geometric side marker smack in the middle holding the emblem; a gesture in metal that evokes all of the concentrated energy of the grill air-outled [sic] without the questionableness of a plugged hole and chromed ribs. Graphic by Formal Intonation…very new. The sensuous flow of the shoulders and hips of the classic roadster and the perfect proportions of true roadsters is all there to be seen in the Z4, but with a modern flair that is really unmatched.

“Shockingly geometric”? “Questionableness”? I really like the Z4, but come on. It’s all surface. It has the same basic proportions as a Big Healey which is hardly ground-breaking. Indeed, go and look at the Austin Healey in that link to see a different, yet undeniably elegant, way to achieve a vent behind the front wheel that doesn’t have a “plugged hole and chromed ribs” (which I suspect is a dig at the Z3, but that’s another thing altogether).At the end of the interview Bangle is asked about iDrive and how some experts have said that it, well, sucks. He says:

The fact that all premium manufacturers have some sort of I-Drive probably shows we were on the right track, just ahead of the game. I wouldn’t want a car without it and neither would my wife (I asked), so is this a question about scorecards or about what is the proper way to multitask on the current and future driving environment?

As if multitasking while driving is even desirable or even worthwhile.

So, Chris Bangle: genius or tosspot. I say, why can’t he be both?