The big car manufacturers have recently discovered an effective marketing instrument in a new kind of corporate architecture: large museums and car collection centres built right next to the production plant, where the customer can experienced an idealised world of the automobile – a world which conveys the brand values of the major producers by means of breathtaking corporate architecture designed by some of the best-known architects of our times: Coop Himmelb(l)au built the new BMW Museum in Munich, UN Studios the Mercedes Museum in Stuttgart, and close by in Zuffenhausen the Porsche Museum has recently been built by Delugan Meissl from Vienna. However, all these structures have one thing in common: they are dynamic designs for static cars – cars which very rarely move.

But what about the buildings erected for cars which do move? Buildings in which we take a break, fill the tank, wash and park our cars?

Here we focus on petrol stations, motorway service areas, multi-storey car parks and car wash facilities which form a special kind of setting for drivers and their vehicles. There's a veritable stage set on the first floor of the Tiefenbrunnen car wash, which has been constructed in Zurich by the local firm of architects 'atelier ww': above the car-care service centre there's a cigar lounge with a piano bar and a view of the lake.