Former Nazi bunker re-opens as private museum
The Reichsbahnbunker Friedrichstrasse (State Railway Bunker) was built in 1942 to to offer protection against Allied air raids, and now houses a new private museum that has 3000 m2 of exhibition space.
Starting June 7, Christian Boros and his wife are making their collection of contemporary art available to the public in a converted bunker in Mitte, a central borough of Berlin. For a ten-euro ($15) fee visitors can sign up online for guided tours. The Boros Collection (Sammlung Boros in German) displays 90 works, mostly sculptures, by 57 highly acclaimed artists such as Damien Hirst, Tobias Rehberger, John Bock, and Wolfgang Tillmans.
The old bunker at Reinhardstrasse 20 was built in 1942 as part of Nazi architect Albert Speer’s Germania project. The bunker was to offer passengers from the near by Berlin-Friedrichstrasse railway station protection against Allied air raids. After the war it served as a Russian-run prison, a fruit-storage facility in the former East Germany, and a hall for techno music raves.
In 2003, Christian Boros bought the bunker and started to prepare the conversion of the building for the collection of contemporary art. Jens Casper from the Berlin-based office Realarchitektur
was entrusted with the conversion.
A visit to the collection is possible through an advance reservation for a guided tour on the museum’s website, although most tours in the first coming months are already fully booked.
Read more:
International Herald Tribune (May 15, 2008)
Der Spiegel International (April 24, 2008)
Sammlung Boros website
Interior pictures of Sammlung Boros © Hanns Joosten/Thomas Spier
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