For these visiting Hamburg, Bunker St. Pauli would stand out as a fort-like construction with hanging gardens, in contrast to different German buildings. It not too long ago opened its doorways to individuals seeking to keep on the lodge it homes or go to certainly one of its eating places.
Ulrich Perrey—image alliance/Getty Pictures
However these acquainted with Hamburg’s historical past know that even when the bunker solely simply relaunched in its fashionable avatar, it’s been round a very long time—since 1942, to be exact.
Constructed throughout World Battle II in 1942, the “Flakturm IV,” because it was known as then, is a remnant of the Nazi regime. Laborers constructed it over simply 300 days as an anti-aircraft protection construction.
A long time later, the bunker serves a really totally different goal—internet hosting visitors who wish to catch a roof-top view of Hamburg or take pleasure in a cocktail at its bar.
The strong construction, one of many largest of its sort, was among the many bunkers that weren’t blown up in a “denazification course of,” the property’s web site says, as this might have endangered neighboring areas.
It was later repurposed as a short lived housing for Hamburg residents and a TV broadcasting middle earlier than evolving right into a music and nightlife venue.
The revamp, which price €100 million, has given the bunker a distinct look, with a mixture of concrete-like rusticity and a splash of greenery, paving the way in which for what the property calls “an unforgettable expertise.” The mission’s preliminary price range was €35 million.
Reverb, a lodge operated by Onerous Rock, can also be housed within the bunker and provides 134 rooms.
Bunker St. Pauli opened on July 5, roughly two years later than deliberate.
Becoming the previous into the current
The bunker joins a slew of Nazi-era developments which might be making an attempt to reintegrate into the current day. In 2018, the headquarters of the Gestapo, the Nazi regime’s secret police, reopened as luxurious boutiques, workplaces and flats in Hamburg. The situation had an extended—and bloody—historical past and its opening didn’t come with out pushback.
Architects in Austria are engaged on reworking Adolf Hitler’s birthplace into a police station, a plan that has sparked a lot controversy concerning the positioning’s use. The unique membership Soho Home in Berlin is situated in a 1928 constructing with hyperlinks to the Nazi-era.
Different international locations face the problem of reconciling areas with painful pasts of commercializing it—together with the U.S., the place a number of plantations carry tales of slave historical past with them.
Nonetheless, Bunker St. Pauli tries to carry a little bit of Hamburg’s vibrance to a working-class neighborhood. It has been a venue for artwork and music occasions lengthy earlier than adopting its hospitality facet. The bunker can even have a memorial for Nazi victims, together with exhibition areas.
There are nonetheless over 600 bunkers left in Hamburg, though many are discreet.
Ulrich Perrey—image alliance/Getty Pictures
When the refurbishment was introduced in 2019, it aimed to make the bunker’s historical past extra accessible to individuals as an alternative of alienating it.
“We perceive it’s a delicate matter,” a spokesperson for the NH Lodge Group, which managed the bunker’s improvement, advised The New York Instances in 2019. “We wish to ship a optimistic sign to town of Hamburg.”
Ulrich Perrey—image alliance/Getty Pictures
Representatives at Bunker St. Pauli didn’t instantly return Fortune’s request for remark.
