Karl Bonatz, 1943 [link] // Realarchitektur, 2004 [link]
Berlin Bunker
Berlin, Germany
Midway between the German Reichstag and Kunsthaus Tacheles, stands a Nazi air-raid bunker: fiercely monumental, strictly symmetrical, and a sharply stripped-classicist-style structure of reinforced concrete. Today, after 750 cubic meters of concrete was violently diamond-drilled from 7-feet thick walls and 10-feet thick ceilings, it houses the contemporary art collection of a wealthy advertiser-turned-art-collector, who lives in a luxurious penthouse upstairs with his family. Works by Olafur Eliasson, Wolfgang Tillmans and Ai Wei Wei are all casually swallowed by the massive, exposed walls, which have seen too much. It seems a histor-ectomy is needed, perhaps an anarchic-mad-fetish-techno-rave cleansing is appropriate.
