Boros Collection

About this place

Few art spaces carry as much layered history as the Boros Collection. The reinforced concrete bunker on Reinhardtstraße was built in 1942 as an air raid shelter, later used as a Soviet POW camp, a fruit and textile warehouse, and a fetish club before collectors Karen and Christian Boros acquired it in 2003. Architect Jens Casper spent five years transforming the inert mass into a 3,000 square metre exhibition labyrinth, opening in 2008. The thick concrete walls — some up to two metres — became structural assets: roughly 80 rooms across five floors each have their own character, with ceiling heights ranging from 2.5 to 8 metres. Casper threaded light into the interior through carefully cut openings and connected the floors via a choreographed sequence of stairs and ramps. The crowning gesture is a 450 square metre glass penthouse on the roof — the Boros family home, sitting atop one of Berlin's most imposing pieces of wartime architecture. The contrast between the raw concrete shell and the luminous rooftop residence is total. The collection spans international contemporary art from 1990 to the present, with works by Wolfgang Tillmans, Olaf Eliasson, Alicja Kwade, and others. Access is exclusively by guided tour booked in advance — the constraint shapes the experience, ensuring each visit is unhurried.