Contributor
Realarchitektur

2007
Sammlung Boros - Berlin - Germany

A 5 storey bunker in the centre of Berlin has been refurbished and converted to house the contemporary art collection of Christian Boros. The World War Two building houses approximately 3000m² of exhibition space. Temporary exhibitions in close cooperation with the artists are planned. A 500m² extension at roof level provides living space for the art collector and his family.
Inside the bunker new spaces have been created mainly by subtraction from the existing forms. On top of the building structures are being added which relate closely to existing ones inside the bunker. The two are joined by a connecting piece (staircase and lift). It has been our aim to work with discovered circumstances, to develop out of the existing.
Additions, walls and fences were removed. The facades were cleaned and have been structurally refurbished in accordance with the Heritage.
The many traces and marks left by the war and the history following, were dealt with individually and partly directly on site. No final cover up screed has been made. The traces remain physically present. The entrance for the art collection is set on Reinhardstrasse and the private rooms are entered on the park side. To connect up to the newly created dwelling on top of the building, around 150 cubic meters of reinforced concrete were cut out of the bunker's three meter thick roof. The apartment is reached through this opening by way of a steel staircase of meshed steel and an internal open lift, which is partly clad in the same material. The traces of the cut showing old reinforcement bars in the walls and the surfaces resulting from different demolition methods have been left exposed.

[project selected by Lorenzo Giovannoni]

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Architecture as Resource / Imprint