Christopher Edward Bangle

Christopher Edward Bangle was born in Ravenna, Ohio; raised in Wisconsin, he attended Wassau West High School (1972-1975) and the University of Wisconsin, Liberal Arts Studies (1975-1977), Art Centre College of Design in Pasadena, CA (BS with honors and Master in Industrial Design (1977-1981); during his studies he worked as assistant designer at Hartkopf Associates (1978-1981)
after the studies Bangle worked at first for Opel and Fiat becoming in January of 1992 the Director of Centro Stile Fiat - one of the main design centers in Turin; he participated in the design of Fiat Coupe and Alfa Romeo 145.
Bangle became BMW's Head of Design Development in October of 1992 and Head of the Designworks 1996-2001 - US design subsidiary purchased by BMW from American veteran designer Charles W. Pelly (Chuck) in 1996; Bangle was BMW's overall Head of Design 2007-2009; he was responsible for the designs of the  BMW E81 / E82 / E87 / E88, E90 / E91 / E92 / E93, E60 / E61, E63 / E64 , E65 / E66 and E53; Bangle himself spoke about expression of power in its design and BMW signature elements in the body of the car; his ideas were called deconstructivist in a sense that his designs moved away from the traditional function>material>form equasion; he also spoke about flame surfacing of the body of the car (talking about the first Z4 in 2002),the so called ß "Bangle butt" - an aggressive rear shape of the E65 7 series (in fact designed by van Hooydonk) has been attributed to Bangle, as he has not been afraid to move the BMW styling in this aerodynamically sensible direction;gifted speaker and a renown seller of his ideas, Bangle worked closely with Adrian van Hooydonk who succeeded him at BMW; after the departure from BMW, Chris Bangle wanted to complete the construction of his private house in Italy and had plans to establish his own design studio
Bangle said in one of his lectures: Cars are art, cars are what we are.