DAS BUNKER

This basically talks about this guy in Berlin who just converted an abandoned Nazi bunker in a contemporary art museum-cum-apartment for his family and himself. And this guy, who is clearly nuts-but-in-a-good-way, got legitimately famous artists to come in and put pieces in his concretized museum, like Tobias Rehberger, Wolfgang Tillmans (who is phenomenal) Olafur Eliasson (whom I had lunch with recently. No joke).

His name is Christian Boros and he some how got absurdly rich in advertising. His policy on purchasing art is, apparently, to buy art he doesn't like (which must explain why he own Damien Hirsts. Badum!) because it makes him feel uncomfortable because thinking something is beautiful is too easy. Which I can kind of relate to, because I think WWII architecture is arguably gorgeous.

The structure itself was originally intended to shield Berliners from Allied bombing, but was then taken over by the Red Army right after the fall to use as a prison. If that wasn't enough, in the Russian occupation converted the bunker into a space to hold bananas imported from Communist Cuba. And then, in the nineties, it became a club for hard techno and fetishism Deutschy style. Basically, it has the best history in the world and everything I love about Europe all rolled into one (Nazis, Russians, techno, bananas...wait. I can't tolerate any of those things.)

Here are some pictures from his site:

The outside of the bunker



An Olafur Eliasson





Bunker Detail

Inside the bunker

I cannot begin to imagine what this was used for

Pre-renovation

I believe this is Santiago Serra, not sure

No idea who this is...but I really like those untreated walls

More atmosphere

There are some other pictures but I would get fired for showing them because of "copyrights" or something, but you can go see it yourself for ten euros in Berlin, once a month in June. Or once a week in June. Something insane and eclectic and rich like that.

Here's the website: http://www.sammlung-boros.de/:

And at five stories tall, I bet that thing is totally haunted with really great ghosts.