Qualla: Autostadt

Autostadt: Introduction

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ralf Roletschek (talk) - Fahrradtechnik auf fahrradmonteur.de - Wissensmanagement mit Wikis, FAL. The odometer reads zero. Not almost zero, not the eleven or twelve kilometres a car normally accumulates being shuffled between a factory and a transporter and a dealership forecourt - actually zero. That is the trick the Autostadt was built around. Buyers of a new Volkswagen in certain European countries can choose to come to Wolfsburg instead of having the car delivered, and if they do, their car travels the last stretch of its journey underground and then vertically, inside a glass tower, before being set down in front of them. The site opened in May 2000 on the north bank of the Mittelland Canal, directly across the water from the plant that has been building cars here since 1938. It now draws around two million visitors a year, which makes it one of the most-visited attractions in Germany and an unusual thing for a car company to have built.

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Image: Ralf Roletschek (talk) - Fahrradtechnik auf fahrradmonteur.de - Wissensmanagement mit Wikis | FAL

Autostadt: Two Glass Silos Full of Cars

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit High Contrast, CC BY 2.0 de. The AutoTürme are the reason people photograph the place. Two cylindrical towers of glass, each 60 metres tall, stand at the water's edge holding finished cars on stacked circular racks - visible from outside, lit at night, more aquarium than warehouse. A 700-metre tunnel runs be...

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Image: High Contrast | CC BY 2.0 de

Autostadt: Four Hundred Architects and a Fuel Depot

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tine, CC BY-SA 3.0. The idea started in 1994, out of a plan to document how Volkswagen vehicles are made and to show the company off at Expo 2000 in Hanover. Ground was broken in 1998 on the former site of a fuel company bordering the plant, and the finished complex is credited to more than 400 arch...

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Image: Tine | CC BY-SA 3.0

Autostadt: Seven Pavilions, Seven Arguments

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Charles01, CC BY-SA 4.0. Each brand in the group gets a building that argues its case in architecture. Volkswagen has two - a large circular pavilion covering more ground than any other, showing the current range across two floors, and a much smaller production pavilion added late. The Porsche pavilion i...

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Image: Charles01 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Autostadt: Spheres, Mirrors and Castanets

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Erebus555 at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Audi pavilion hands each visitor a small plastic sphere, activated at the entrance with a name and a photograph. As you move through the building the sphere glows in the colour of whichever section you are standing in, and pressing it into hemispherical depressions on the wal...

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Image: Erebus555 at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0

Autostadt: Driving, Not Just Looking

Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ralf Roletschek (talk) - Wissensmanagement mit Wikis, FAL. Under the bridge that carries visitors over the canal from the town, the Autostadt keeps an off-road course for the Volkswagen Touareg. Show a driving licence and a guide will first take you round it, narrating what the vehicle can do, then swap seats and let you drive with the g...

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Image: Ralf Roletschek (talk) - Wissensmanagement mit Wikis | FAL