A BMW Art Car on display at the brand experience center near the China Art Museum at the site of the former Shanghai World Expo.

BMW recently unveiled a brand experience center in Shanghai, part of its Future Retail program in China to improve the brand's recognition and customer relations.

Unlike a showroom or dealership, it has no sales function. It has a relaxing and free atmosphere more like a museum where visitors could learn about the brand's history and products.

In sharp contrast to the nearby China Art Museum at the former Shanghai World Expo site, the BMW Brand Experience center features transparency, openness and simplicity, said its chief designer Nicholas Ott.

The first of its kind in the world for BMW, the biggest challenge for its architect was "how to compete with the China Art Museum, which is massive, beautiful and dominant".

The two-story building covers only about 2,000 square meters, an eighth the size of the China Art Museum's elaborate structure.

But he soon realized that it "does not make sense to compete" with the museum. "I can still make something that is relatively small but creative, in the sense of an icon," said Ott.

One basic design concept for the center is "turning the inside out", making the interior of the building fully visible from the outside.

With seven-meter-high glass facades, the center "plays off the China Pavilion" by allowing visitors to see it as a landmark background no matter whether they are inside or outside the BMW building.

And more than that, Ott said the two buildings "create a drama", with one a model of traditional Chinese philosophy and the other representing modern Western architecture.

"The China Art Museum has strong sculpture on the outside, but you have no idea what's going on inside," he explained. "We just create the interior space (of the center) and open the curtain. It's a trick that there are two completely different design approaches, with no competition because they are far apart in thinking."

The interior of the center is divided into three main areas - an exhibition hall that is wide and tall, a long and narrow gallery and a functional space that is low and small.