Posted on Jan 7, 2013 in Berlin |

The Boros Collection is a private art collection housed in a WWII bunker.

Which one do you think is the entrance to the bunker?
Weeks ago, I had booked a tour of the Boros Collection for January 6. It’s a private art collection housed in a large WWII bunker in the middle of Berlin. The owners of the collection also own the bunker and occupy a large loft on top of the bunker as their private home. You have to book this tour online well in advance, it takes 1.5 hours and they only take 12 people per tour. The fee is €10.
The gist of it that this was an incredible experience. I enjoyed the art which was sometimes very playful in contrast to the bunker, and I appreciated the bunker architecture as a historical reminder and that the renovation architects left so much of it intact. Sometimes all the rebars that are inserted into the walls are exposed, walls are mostly left in raw concrete form, you can see where floor plans were altered, the artists have created much of their work to fit into the spaces, it’s really a theme park for art lovers in there.
The gallery’s owners collect modern art by (based on their website): Ai Weiwei, Awst & Walther, Dirk Bell, Cosima von Bonin, Marieta Chirulescu, Thea Djordjadze, Olafur Eliasson, Alicja Kwade, Klara Lidén, Florian Meisenberg, Roman Ondák, Stephen G. Rhodes, Thomas Ruff, Michael Sailstorfer, Tomás Saraceno, Thomas Scheibitz, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Danh Vo, Cerith Wyn Evans und Thomas Zipp.
Taking photos during the tour was not allowed, only in the entrance and lobby areas, so I have nothing to show you, but you can find examples of the bunker rooms housing art on the collection’s website. Now enjoy this short tour.

The bunker floor plan seems sort of evil with its relentlessly precise symmetrical design. The walls of this thing are incredibly thick.

Entering the bunker, you are met by logs which seem to tell you where you can and can not go.

Entering the bunker, you are met by logs which seem to tell you where you can and can not go.

No, you steam punks, this is not a Bioshock game prop! It’s a real WWII bunker phone! Geez!

Real bunker doors.

Real bunker door handle.

This is just a reflection of the ceiling neon light on one of the white-lacquered benches in the waiting area for tour groups, but it turned into something that looked like minimalist art.

A lamp glows in the Boros bunker. I think I may have helped this effect by under-exposing, but I am not sure and too busy to check.

Who knows where this lead to, but it looks ominous.

Big brother is still watching you.

I walked by this “Moonlight” lighting store and could not resist playing with the globe lamps mixing with the reflection of the street scene outside.

As I leave the Boros bunker on this rainy Sunday of January 6, there are signs of still-heavy Berlin construction everywhere.

Many buildings in the Berlin government area have this “Bundestag” sign, which I take to mean there are German representatives working around here. I hope they are. All of Europe hopes they are.

Graffiti is alive and well in Berlin and definitely serves a purpose; it’s not always there just to tag, it’s there to express freedom of thought, opinion, make political and personal statements, to educate, decorate, inform. I am all for the graffiti. This particular one is a call to establish a minimum wage, which does not exist in Germany, believe it or not.

Looking over towards where Angela might be and one of her parks.

The British embassy in Berlin is barricaded off by these cylinders, a police car is parked out front, it is a dreary, cold, rainy Sunday in the first week of January, nobody wants to be down here right now except a lone Canadian tourist…

I believe this is an office building near Potsdamer Platz, Berlin with a cool mobile sculpture hanging into its lobby. The woman who is just walking down the stairs is wearing a jacket or dress with a white lapel with black piping that seems to echo the sculpture’s look.

Potsdamer Platz, Berlin.

Sony Center near Potsdamer Platz, Berlin.

A bar or cafe in the Sony Center.

Sony Center, Berlin. This was a day of many impressions, almost too many to process.
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