AART cloaks Cold War Museum Regan Vest with black metal

Black-metal panels and shutters carry an “aura of mystique” to the Chilly Struggle Museum Regan Vest in Denmark, designed by structure studio AART.

The museum is positioned on the positioning of Regan Vest, a hidden Chilly Struggle-era bunker that was secretly constructed 60 metres under northern Jutland’s Rold Forest.

Within the occasion of nuclear struggle, the bunker is the place each the Danish authorities and monarch would have been evacuated. Its existence was solely revealed in 2012.

The construction opened to the general public as a museum in 2023 and the constructing by Aarhus-based AART supplies a restaurant and extra exhibition house exploring Denmark’s historical past through the Chilly Struggle.

Aiming to seize the secretive nature of this bunker, AART clad the 4 blocks of Chilly Struggle Museum Regan Vest in black-coated metal panels. These are supposed to climate and switch rusty purple over time, finally mimicking the worn look of the bunker.

“The architectural answer presents 4 matte-black packing containers, every a deliberate abstraction that guards the secrets and techniques inside and behind,” AART companions Anders Tyrrestrup and Nicolaj Thunbo informed Dezeen.

“This method piques customer curiosity from the second of arrival, framing the expertise with an aura of mystique and historic gravitas,” they added.

“These enigmatic volumes combine seamlessly into the customer’s journey, guaranteeing a steady narrative of suspense and historic depth.”

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Partially dug into the sloping website, the blocks include exhibition and occasions areas, a central cafe and reception space and workplaces on the other aspect.

A path with lighting and planting leads alongside the entrance of the museum, offering entry whereas additionally connecting it to the bunker.

The facade of Chilly Struggle Museum Regan Vest’s central and largest block incorporates full-height shutters that enable the reception and cafe’s home windows and an exterior seating terrace to be opened as much as the panorama.

Inside, black metal and uncovered concrete have been used to evoke the sensation of the Sixties bunker and are complemented by pale wooden particulars within the cafe.

“The selection of the supplies displays the character of the unique bunker in a delicate and fashionable method,” mentioned Tyrrestrup and Thunbo.

“The packing containers are lined in matte varnished Corten plates, that over time will patinate to a partly rusty purple – like struggle materials left behind,” they added.

One other mission involving a Chilly Struggle-era construction is the conversion of a bunker close to Prague right into a mirrored pet crematorium by Petr Hájek Architekti.

Within the US, Elkus Manfredi Architects remodeled a Chilly Struggle-era constructing designed to resist nuclear blasts right into a facility for the Youngsters’s Nationwide Analysis & Innovation Campus.

The images is by Rasmus Hjortshøj.