An interview with BMW's Adrian van Hooydonk

BusinessWeek has an interview with one of the most controversial men in design today, Adrian van Hooydonk, who heads up BMW’s design divisions along with the infamous Chris Bangle. Despite Bangle’s notoriety for being the man behind BMW’s design revolution, van Hooydonk is just as responsible for coming up with flame surfacing and the erroneously dubbed “Bangle butt.”

Some choice quotes include:

Consumers always will give an opinion based on what they know—they can say what they like or don't like today. What we're really asking ourselves today is what cars should be like in 2010. BMW embraces risk. It knows that risk comes with the territory. It's too scary for some competitors. Other automobile manufacturers won't take that risk. No one likes making mistakes. But BMW knows that's part of doing business.

and…

At BMW, design happens in a competition. Not only is each studio in Munich, Los Angeles, and Singapore in competition, each designer is in competition with the one sitting next to him. It's an open and true competition. Anyone can enter with their sketches—we aren't biased.

Check out the full interview here.