Bullet holes from the Second World War testify the historical significance of the building. The heart of this hermetic concrete cube contains an exhibition of contemporary works from the private collection of ad agency founder and publisher, Christian Boros. In order to create a suitable space for the collection, architect Jens Casper deconstructed the 3,000 square meter bunker, which was once devoid of natural light, transforming it into a complex room arrangement. The glass superstructure of the penthouse is the polar opposite of the cubeâ€s massiness.

There, Christian and his wife, Karen, live with their son amidst paintings by Elizabeth Peyton and a series of installations by groundbreaking artists such as Olafur Eliasson. It is a dream home that once seemed impossible to realize, but has now become an art manifesto for Berlinâ€s historical Mitte district, where change is the norm.

Christian Boros is the owner of an advertising agency with offices in Wuppertal and Berlin. He has been collecting contemporary art since 1990. Over this time, he has put together a private collection with around 500 works by artists such as Damian Hirst, Olafur Eliasson, Elizabeth Peyton, Wolfgang Tillmans, Anselm Reyle, Manfred Pernice, Tobias Rehberger, John Bock, Wilhelm Sasnal and Michel Majerus.

The Boros Collection now has a permanent home in a converted bunker in Berlin -Mitte. The first presentation of selected exhibits, to open in June 2008, will be exclusively works which incorporate the bunker space itself. Sculptures, room and light installations as well as performance works will create a new experience of the rooms in the bunker. Most of the works were installed and staged by the artists themselves. There was no curator. The artists sometimes altered or added to their works in order to overcome the sometimes difficult space, and some of the works were created especially for the bunker.

The private collection can be viewed by prior appointment. There will be two-hour guided tours every Saturday. He currently has comprehensive groups of works of 57 artists. Parts of the collection were previously shown to the public in two museum exhibitions.

The Bunker

In 2003, Christian Boros bought the 1942-built 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. It took a year of planning and four years of conversion; in addition, the 1000 square meter roof space was turned into a penthouse complete with terraces and a roof garden.

The new private museum has 3000 m2 of exhibition space, with room heights varying from 2,30 to 13 metres. Many of the low intermediate floors were removed using diamond cutting technology – an extremely time consuming technique. In addition to this, the concrete floors that were cut out had to be broken up inside the bunker and then to be removed by hand. The 120 initial rooms were changed into 80 rooms. There is no daylight. The buildingâ€s monumental character has been preserved: all evidence of the war has been left on the outside and inside one can still see the different uses of the building.

History of the bunker

The bunker is on the corner of Albrechtstrasse and Reinhardtstrasse in the Berlin Mitte. It was built in 1942 as the Reichsbahnbunker Friedrichstrasse (State Railway Bunker). Planning began in 1941 under the supervision of Albert Speer in line with the “Fuehrerâ€s Immediate Programme” for the creation of civil air raid defences. The bunker was to offer passengers from the near by Berlin- Friedrichstrasse railway station protection against Allied air raids. The civil population from the surrounding residential area and visitors to the German Theatre could also shelter here when the air raid warning sounded; it could house up to 2000 people. After the German surrender, the Red Army took over the bunker and used it as a prison.

From the mid-1950s onwards, it was used as a store by the nationally owned Berlin fruit and vegetable conglomerate. The thick walls and the sophisticated ventilation system provided an almost constant inside temperature, making it especially suitable for the storage of tropical fruit: in the DDR the locals also called it the ‘Banana Bunkerâ€.

After reunification, the techno and fetish scene discovered the bunker as a party location. The “Bunker” was considered one of the most hardcore techno clubs in Germany, with the SM and fetish parties organised there achieving fame well beyond the borders of Berlin. “Sexperimenta” took place in the bunker in 1995 and the bunker saw its last techno party in 1996.

It is a square building which is about 38 m long and 16 m tall. Inside, the shelter covers five floors. There is a separate stairwell on each of the four sides. The external walls are made of 2 m thick solid reinforced concrete. The original rooms were just 2.3 m high. The roof is 3.10 m thick reinforced concrete. What was known as “blue concrete” was used to build it.

This modern loft has some ideas in common with most houses, old and new, though – the kitchen is the heart of the home. It is finished in high-quality concrete plaster, appearing as though it was carved from a single block. Folding windows and doors open onto two 13-meter balconies, bringing the outdoors in. Folding windows and doors are used on the northern and southern facades which can be completely opened to extend the space with two 13-meters balconies. The whole loft design is the balance between the gallery and the studio. Graft Architects

“Living and Working, Openness and Intimacy; Flexibility has become the keyword in contemporary Loft Design. Unless the private areas are opened to the “public” or to private guests, the owner of a Loft lives in a hidden private world. Openness and fluid continuums integrating bedroom, bathroom, living room and kitchen become possible. Individuality today only depends on the dreams and the courage of the owners.”

Beds, benches, sofas, walk in closets, shelves and library are integrated in the wall construction, inviting people to inhabit the forms that usually only surround us.

The loft was designed as a flexible open space, with the entrance, staircase, bathrooms and storage rooms, hidden in a sculptural mega-form.

In order to integrate the central “sculpture,” and connect to the activities of daily life, the architects carved it out, and cut it apart. This generated a playground for numerous possible combinations of protecting, “cave-like,” and open, “stage-like,” atmospheres.

A number of sliding walls allowed for subdivisions of the flow around the core, with the kitchen acting as the heart of the house. Bedrooms and adjacent bathrooms can be combined to suites.

All surfaces in the kitchen, including furniture, walls, floor and ceiling, as well as all surfaces of the core, are covered with a high quality concrete plaster. All other surfaces by a sophisticated drywall technology.

The north and south facades are closed by a foldable window/door system. Both can be completely opened, extending the space to include the two exterior balconies.

Living in this environment is a balance between an extroverted Gallery atmosphere, and an introverted Studio atmosphere.

Architect Thomas Wienands made great use of the existing structure and material character of this wide-open loft space, leaving as much of the wall and vaulted-ceiling brickwork exposed as possible – as well as massive steel columns, reinforced with I-beams and held in place by giant-sized rivets.

The newly-added elements are intentionally minimal, providing a smooth contrast to the roughness of the original space. In some cases, white walls enclose rooms or serve as half-height partitions between areas. In other instances, their tops curve to conform to the gentle slopes of the old ceilings.

The kitchen is less like a room and more like a loosely-defined zone, and other rooms follow suit to the extent possible – even the bathroom balances privacy with openness. This is definitely a design situation in which less is more – and new is not so much ‘better†as it is a foil for showing off the best of both worlds, perhaps analogous to the overall mixture that defines the wider area of Berlin itself (as shown in this remarkable exterior photograph).

The kitchen cabinets are made of brushed anodized aluminum. they are without handles and are opened through interventions or pressure.

a piece of purple Brazilian slate was selected for the countertop of the kitchen was

The oven is invisibly integrated into the furniture block. when in use, the front panel slides into the cabinet body .

An individual solution built-in sockets in the free-standing kitchen island.

the color of the concrete sink was achieved by adding pigments, the surface is only oiled and waxed.

Even a bedroom can double as a studio,

said Ms. Sander, 53.

I wanted each area to be able to be a work space as well as something else.

Her new space had a long story. In 2000, Ms. Sander was part of a group of 15 artists and architects who chipped in to buy a complex of buildings, where the Prussian army had once manufactured its uniforms, in the Moabit neighborhood of this city.

Ms. Sanderâ€s share was two levels of a three-story building — one on the ground floor and the other on the third floor — with a combined space of about 5,800 square feet, which she bought for 486,000 euros.

Initially she lived and worked on the ground floor and left the top floor empty while she decided what to do with them. After couple of years she came up with the notion of adding two stories above the top floor. However due to mot only lack of money but lack of time, the construction was postponed in a time: her career had taken off, and her work was being shown at galleries around the world, including the Dâ€Amelio Terras gallery in Manhattan and the Museum of Modern Art.

In 2008, Ms. Sander was ready to expand. She hired Sauerbruch Hutton, an architecture firm with offices in the adjoining building, to design her space, as the architects were planning an upward expansion of their own. They created a design that added two stories to the interconnected buildings, bringing them back to their pre-World War II height (the top two floors of both buildings had been severely damaged during the war and subsequently removed).

The color palette of the new space is muted, with materials like sanded concrete, terrazzo and Douglas fir; the only bright color comes from the modern furniture by Konstantin Grcic in the living area. Off the dining area, a door swivels open to reveal a pair of identical spaces that are guest rooms, meditation rooms or offices — or all three, she said.

Upstairs, the master bedroom opens onto a terrace with an outdoor shower. In the bathroom are two more showers; Ms. Sander has six scattered throughout the apartment. “You never know where you might need one,” she said.

The studio itself is divided into two spaces with 18-foot ceilings. In the smaller one, a ladder leads up to a tiny windowed perch; in the larger, another ladder goes to a library loft. The space feels more like a gallery than a studio, it was pointed out to Ms. Sander.

“My way of living and working changes constantly,” she said, noting that she has already used the studio to show her work and that of other artists. It has also been a performance space for an artist whose medium is yoga and a site for a conference on climate change.

via DESIGNSIGH