Berlin: Entering the Boros bunker - A mind-altering artistic journey

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Walking into the massive Boros bunker in Berlin’s Mitte is like walking into some ancient, alien tomb.


This forbidding concrete monolith, built by the Nazis in 1942, is now the home of a rather eccentric private art collection

Inside the building’s anthill-like network of corridors and small rooms, the art on display completely changes how you experience the space. 

You encounter everything from strange kinetic sculptures to multimedia installations flickering in the dark. Each room opens like a window into a different creative mind, and to be honest, the story of the building itself is just as exciting as the art displayed inside it.

 

During the war, the bunker sheltered several thousand civilians from the nightly bombings that hit Berlin. In 1945, the Red Army used the building for prisoners of war, and it later became an East German warehouse for tropical fruit. 
After the wall came down, the empty building was squatted by kids. During the nineties, it became simply 'Bunker' - one of the world's most notorious sites for raves and fetish parties on the new Berlin techno scene.

After the authorities forced the club to shut down following a particularly wild party, the huge concrete block fell into disrepair for several years. It stayed that way until 2003, when the German advertising executive Christian Boros bought it to exhibit his vast private collection of contemporary art. Since the concrete walls were too thick to be demolished, Boros hired a young architect, Jens Caspar, to completely reinvent the interior.

They actually took out entire floors to turn the claustrophobic little chambers into double-height galleries. And on top of the building, barely visible from the streets below, Boros built a 450-square-meter penthouse where his family lives today. 

The many rooms in the former bunker still show their history, complete with Nazi markings and old stains on the walls from the techno days. 
 

Boros himself describes the vast building below his living room not as a museum or an institution, but simply as their 'hobby-cellar, and because of security and fire rules, you can only wander around this hobby cellar in small groups of ten. 

Rita and I were among today’s lucky few to follow the guide through the winding pathways into the galleries. 

Just when you think you have figured out the layout of one room, you step into another where the proportions and the artwork completely throw off your sense of direction

 


By the time we finally walked back out into the lobby, we were both a bit overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the history and the art combined.


Some of the photos in this article are supplied by the Boros Foundation. It is not allowed to photograph inside the proper exhibition, and unfortunately - the works we found to be the most spectacular, were not among the photos offered

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