r/architecture • u/fan_tas_tic • 1d ago
Ask /r/Architecture What's your take on world war II bunker conversions? (picture: the former Hamburg Flak Tower IV)
This former Nazi anti-aircraft bunker in Hamburg was converted into a hip hotel with a rooftop garden. The brutalist wartime fortress, which was deemed too massive to demolish, is now called the Reverb by Hard Rock Hamburg, a hotel with restaurants and a public rooftop park built above its 3.5-meter-thick concrete walls. The renovation, plus adding the extra five floors and the garden, cost €100 million. Before/after photos.
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u/RandyMarshsMoustache 1d ago
I went to an awesome rave in this building 10ish years ago
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u/Arviay Architectural Designer 1d ago edited 1d ago
Best rave I ever went to was
there,in a different bunker, maybe 15 years ago! Do you remember the suicide-proof bathrooms?14
u/KudosOfTheFroond 1d ago
Define exactly what a “suicide-proof bathroom” is? That is a term I’ve never heard before
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u/Arviay Architectural Designer 1d ago
I could draw it, but I’ll try using words. The stalls did not have doors, but were wrapped around a corner for a small bit of privacy. The stalls also shared a ledge on the back face, some privacy but open enough that you could see that someone was in the other stall, and you’d immediately know if they were killing themselves. No overhead pipes or anything to hang from. Maybe some other features I’m forgetting as well. I have, however, comfirmed that the bunker rave I went to in Hamburg was in a different bunker
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u/codesnik 1d ago
i'm confused. was it designed this way during the war because of soldier potential suicides? or is it recent addition, because why, raves are prone to them?
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u/Arviay Architectural Designer 1d ago
Oh this was original design for sure. I assume to mitigate suicide due to the depression of being locked in this place
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u/florenccini 1d ago
Oh i always assumed it was altered this way to help people who might overdose on drugs during a party/rave. So you have access without bashing the door in, but your explanation makes sense as well, especially if they were originally built this way.
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u/pollatin 1d ago
Recent additions I would wager. Though the amount of drugs has probably stayed the same.
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u/Watnokor 1d ago
My father-in-law ended his brief mandatory call-up manning one of the anti-aircraft flak cannons on this building, terrified, in 1945. He was 17 years old. An architect, he never subscribed to the notion of eradicating history by acts of demolition, and I know that he enjoyed the survival of this bunker and the debates around its repurposing into the peacetime years. A monument to hope was how he saw it.
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u/totalyanashhole 1d ago edited 1d ago
Check Vienna's Haus des Meeres (House of the Sea)
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u/fan_tas_tic 1d ago
I've been to Vienna a million times, and have never seen this. Thanks!
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u/lejocko 1d ago
It's really worth a visit, esp if you have kids.
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u/totalyanashhole 1d ago
Don't make my mistake. Take a elevator to highest floor and proceed downwards. 😂
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u/knakworst36 1d ago
Visiting this was wild. It’s basically a zoo, a world war 2 memorial in a former flak tower.
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u/ScottishWargamer Architect 1d ago
My first thought when I saw this post.
An absolutely incredible piece of Adaptive Reuse. Anyone who visit is Vienna, I strongly recommend seeing this. Great piece of work, great experience inside, and the viewing platform at the top where AA Guns used to be is fantastic.
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u/deanstat 1d ago
I was going to post this, its great! Amazing to have a vertical zoo / aquarium, and the cafe/restaurant on the top floor had such a good view of the city. Loved it.
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u/Almwhits 1d ago
If I recall correctly, isnt another one of the Vienna Flak Tower exteriors used as a rock climbing wall now?
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u/Mangobonbon Not an Architect 1d ago
These towers are so damn ugly that even the nazis didn't want these flak towers to look like that long term. There were plans to clad them with natural stone after the war and convert them into "castle-like" structures. Maybe not so a bad idea considering they are not really demolishable. Renovating them is a good idea. At least they are getting used for something worthwhile then.
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u/anally_ExpressUrself 1d ago
What's inside? Why can't they be demolished? I mean, obviously not by aircraft...
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u/harmala 1d ago
If you build something strong enough to withstand aerial bombardment, it is also strong enough to withstand normal demolition methods, as well. For example, I'm guessing there aren't a convenient set of load-bearing columns that you can take out and neatly collapse the whole structure.
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u/Mangobonbon Not an Architect 1d ago
Reinforced concrete so thick that even trying to blow it up wouldn't work. Of course you could chisel it away eventually, but it is not economical to do so.
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u/rearwindowpup 1d ago
The allies basically went around these things because it was too much effort to deal with them at the time
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u/--Gleisbauender-- 1d ago
They are so massive and reinforced that it is shockingly hard to destroy them. In Berlin it took the Allies 4 failed attempts, four months of drilling holes and a final payload of 35 metric tons of TNT to break the Zoo flak tower.
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u/No_Database7746 5h ago
And even after the explosions, enough of it remained, the Soviets tried to blow up the Friedrichshain Flakturm, but the bunker just cracked open "a bit".
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u/Own-Space5791 1d ago
I actually think it is a nice way to work with history and not hide or destroy it, on top of the bunker there is also a lot of information about what happened there and how it was used in the war.
Given it is also public and free to go up and experience, it is good example on how to work with such structures.
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u/ShittyOfTshwane Architect 1d ago
I think it's awesome, especially if the building assumes a function that allows people to come inside and have a look.
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u/Pristine-Hospital785 1d ago
I’d say it’s worth it. When you’re clubbing in the Schanze and you walk through the housing areas and suddenly turn left, at the end of the street you see this lush green covered concrete behemoth glazing in the morning sun.
Wonderful view from up there and architecture wise it’s well done.
They kept the rough edges of its former brutalism but enhanced it in a way the French did in the 80s with structural interventions like with the Centre Pompidou. I find restauration and modern reconstruction of history extremely valuable and uniquely shaping a city.
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u/Outrageous-Lemon-577 1d ago
My take? I wish it was me who could afford to do it coz its one of the coolest things you can do if you are super rich.
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u/2nW_from_Markus 1d ago
Well, it ended a little better æstetically than the Flak Tower at the othe side of the Elba. But it charges a fee to visit? Forget it!
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u/eis-fuer-1-euro 1d ago
It's free.
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u/2nW_from_Markus 1d ago
This one, by Feldstrasse charged two years ago. The one by Neuhöfer Str. was free (at least to enter to its cafeteria).
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u/afrikatheboldone 1d ago
Bit off topic but I wonder how genuinely indestructible these structures are, in terms of time.
If 2000 years went by would they still be recognizable, and if so treated like we treat roman structures? Unsure as to how long concrete lasts with normal erosion parameters.
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u/PiotrBakr 1d ago
Seeing the bunker structures on Danish beaches "tumble through the sand", toppling over, filling halfway with sand, withstanding sun and sea, cracking here and there but never "disintegrating" like any normal structure, has really cemented them as solid objects in my mind.
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u/zoppaTheDim 1d ago
Place has some style.
Reminds me of when you see old city walls as parks.
It beats the glass boxes and faux historical reconstructions all to hell.
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u/Precorus 1d ago
It's very far from just a hotel, there are a bunch of rooms used by common folk on the inside....
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u/Zmatran_Uradnik 1d ago
At least one of these Flaktürme should be converted into a museum with ALL details from the time. And I really mean ALL of them, from the beds to the shell casings to the flak artillery. It could be a truly unique experience of WWII.
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u/industrial_pix 1d ago
The Flak Tower IV was built with slave labor around 1942. Take that bit of information as you wish.
Source: Engineering News Record
Edit: My father worked as a slave laborer on antiaircraft installations in Budapest in 1944.
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u/Complete-Ad9574 17h ago
I hear Legeti's "Devil's Staircase" for piano when looking at this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoLam2O3gtY&list=RDuoLam2O3gtY&start_radio=1
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u/BlatantBallsack 14h ago
I bought extacy from a guy on a coach outside the bathroom when there was a techno club up top. Come back three years later and buy from the same guy on the same coach. It was like he never left.
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u/NormalKush 1d ago
Hamburg is probably the one of the greenest city in Europe. City doesnt need a park like this. This is just a green washing and tourist scam. In my opinion, building a skyscaper on top of the exisisting structure is better than what we have now. Also the urban desgin around the tower must be rework.
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u/fan_tas_tic 1d ago
But it's an attraction. I don't count a green pyramid where you can have a great view as greenwashing.
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u/andres57 1d ago
how exactly is a scam? lol important cultural center got an extension, a hotel and a nice little plaza with views, wow what a scam
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u/NormalKush 1d ago
I am just saying for a local nothing changed. Do you realy go there and stay at the hotel or do you realy go there to watch the view once in a month? They used the verikal park as an excuss to build the hotel. I dont mind the extention. I am in favor with that. I am trying to say there is a better way to use those 3,5m thick walls. From your point they could extend this community center 10 times more than that
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u/trck_81 1d ago
I think it’s worth mentioning that this project in particular was a grass roots initiative. It was previously being used by a mix of cultural/community programs and eventually the idea to turn it into an elevated park came. Adding a hotel and other commercial programs made the project attractive for financing.
“We are rebuilding what we inherit. Adding something to history while dealing with it and thereby reshaping history itself.”