Porsche Zentrum, Stuttgart

Jo and I split our journey to Franconia in southern Germany with a stop-over in Stuttgart. As we’d time to kill whilst there, we looked up some of the sights in advance and decided to stop off briefly at one of the centres of German engineering: the Porsche district. Alongside the obligatorily huge showroom of the dealership next door, and the factory across the road, the Porsche Zentrum museum stood out like an alien invader. Clad entirely in glass, white concrete and reflective surfaces, the building is a sight to behold: not just because of the modern architectural choices, but also because the exhibition space, containing 280 exhibits including 80 historic vehicles, is in the upper part of the building, high above street level. I think I was the only one of the many men there that day who was there for the architectural rather than the automotive.