New York's Cooper Hewitt Museum of Design to feature a BMW WilliamsF1 Grand Prix racing car in its "Extreme Textiles: Designing for High Performance" exhibition.

Munich/New York. Between April 8 and October 23, 2005 one One of the most
renown institutions devoted to design, the Cooper Hewitt Museum of Design in
New York, will stage the a landmark exhibition entitled "Extreme Textiles:
Designing for High Performance." " between April 8 and October 23, 2005.

The Exhibit.

As part of BMW Group's Cultural Communications, the BMW WilliamsF1 Team is
supporting this major show event by displaying an FW26 Grand Prix car that has
previously raced in thecar with 2004 FIA Formula One World Championshipseason
concours history. Accompanying the car display will be aA selection of
authentic team items including among others: an F1 driver's helmet, racing
suit, gloves, and shoes will accompany the FW26 exhibit. Various video display
screens will contextualise the present BMW WilliamsF1 BMW FW26 speeding showing
its performance on the racing track, while interactive hands-on wall labels
will allow visitors to experience the material components through touch. The F1
racinge car itself will be displayed on a specially designed and dynamically
tilted platform that pays homage to itsemphasises the car's status as an
ultimate driving machine. The stand itself is constructed of the most recent
high-tech materials, which makes it most efficient.
a triumph of high technology materials science.

The Exhibition.

This is the first museum exhibition devoted to the subject of technical
textiles and highly engineered textiles and materials that are designed for
ultimate performance in extreme conditions. Curated by Matilda McQuaid,
Exhibitions Curator and Head of Cooper-Hewitt's Textiles department, the
exhibition will present more than 150 extreme textile applications from a wide
range of areasapplications, including architecture, apparelclothing, medicine,
transportation, aerospace, and the environment. The exhibition will examine
the broad spectrum of contemporary design through the lens of textile fibrers
and structures.

The objects exhibits featured in the exhibition will be organized organised in
terms of their high-performance characteristics - : Strongerstronger, lighter,
faster, smarter , and safer. The exhibition runs ; and displayed throughout the
Museum campus, including the first and second floor exhibition galleries, the
Great Hall, and the Arthur Ross Terrace and Garden. The BMW WilliamsF1 Team
will be part of this exhibition in two separate categories.

FirstT, the Faster category will be onform the museum's main floor featuring
the display of an the FW26 on a BMW NA-fabricated platform with Plasma plasma
Screens screens and HP tablet pc's playing copyright free Formula 1 One
footage. provided by the BMW WilliamsF1 Team.

Secondly, part of the museum's second floor is dedicated to the show's theme
Safer, where numerous a range Formula 1 One items are on display, including an
Fa1 driver's helmet, racing suit, gloves and shoes, supported by HP tablet pc's.

Extreme Textiles will explore the recent advancements in technical textiles,
and reference the Museum's own textile collection in order to illustrate
historical examples of textile structures and techniques-such as weaving,
knitting, braiding, and embroidery, all of which - that continue to be used in
the most pioneering textiles today.

The Museum.

Founded in 1897 the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian
Institution, New York, is the only museum in the United States devoted
exclusively to historic and contemporary design. The Museum believes that
design shapes our objects, environments, and communications, making them more
desirable, functional, and accessible. With more than 250,000 objectsexhibits,
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum is one of the largest repositories of
design in the world - and with over 60,000 volumes in its library, it has
become an important research institution for scholars and the interested public
alike.

On Sunday, April 24, Paul Warwick Thompson, Director of the Cooper-Hewitt
National Design Museum is an invited panelist at the "BMW Group Design Talk
Villa Erba 05". During this year's Concorso d'Eleganza at on the shores of
Italy's Lake Cuomo, international keynote speakers including Carl Magnusson, VP
and Konstantin Grcic, a Munich based designer will discuss the design of the
1950's.

Later in the year, Paola Antonelli, design curator at the Museum of Modern Art,
will launch a MoMA design exhibition of her own, SAFER, which will include an
original BMW R 1150 RT-P motorcycle as they are being used by the California
Highway Patrol.

BMW Group and BMW NA would like to say offer special thanks to Hewlett Packard
for finance and technology in regard to providingrelation to the exhibits and
their set-up. We are also grateful to our Formula One1 partners Accenture,
Allianz and Anheuser Busch for their support.

Contact Info:

Ms. Laurie L. Olivieri
Press Manager
Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
2 East 91st Street
New York, NY 10128
T 212-849-8420
F 212-849-1549
olivieril@si.edu
http://ndm.si.edu/

Should you have any queries, please contact:

Corporate Communications

Thomas Girst, Public Relations, Head of Cultural Communications
Telephone: +49 89 382 24753, Fax: +49 89 382 28017

Michael Kirsch, Head of Public Relations
Telefon: +49 89 382 25111, Fax: +49 89 382 28017

Internet: www.press.bmwgroup.com, www.bmwgroup.com/culture
e-mail: presse@bmw.de