At the height of the Cold War, fear over the potential outbreak of a third, even more, devastating world war—of possible Armageddon—resulted in the proliferation of a new architectural typology in service of human hubris, of survival and defence against annihilation by nuclear fallout: the nuclear bunker. The year was 1963. The Soviets were testing lethal hydrogen bombs and events in the Cuban Missile Crisis had exacerbated military anxieties. Bolstered by growing political tensions and its proximity to the Iron Curtain, Denmark was fortifying itself against the threat of hostilities; with nearly 14,000 shelters built during this era. One of the largest among these, REGAN Vest was constructed to act as a nuclear shelter for the country’s government, civil servants and the royal family. It was designed as two large, connected rings, containing more than 230 rooms to accommodate at least 350 people.
Concealed from civilisation deep in northern Jutland’s Rold Forest, the sprawling complex spread over 5500 sqm and built 60m underground was mainly used for practice drills until it was completely shut down in 2003. The government kept the facility a state secret until it was rediscovered in 2012 and eventually opened to visitors in 2023. To better facilitate visitors to the secluded site, a new Danish Cold War Museum has been built over the subterranean architecture of the bunker.
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The museum’s facade is clad with blackened anodised aluminium panels Image: Rasmus Hjortshøj
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Landscaping for the project was done by Danish practice SLA Image: Rasmus Hjortshøj
Designed by Aarhuss-based architecture studio, AART, the museum provides visitors with a cafe space and additional exhibition areas that delve into the history of the Cold War and Denmark’s involvement. As founding partner of the practice, Anders Tyrrestrup says of the museum design, “The Cold War Museum REGAN Vest is an utterly unique place, which will create a framework for a very central story in Danish history — a story that is still relevant and important in this day and age.” Not only is the history of the site symbolic of the will to survive; but marks the relevance of this symbol in an age marked yet again by geopolitical strife. As museum director Lars Christian Norbach mentioned previously about REGAN Vest, the bunker represents the ‘last bastion of democracy’ in Denmark.
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The facade design employs a movable fenestration system Image: Rasmus Hjortshøj
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A longitudinal section through the newly designed exhibition spaces Image: Courtesy of AART
Augmenting the history of the bunker, the museum’s scheme is structured around the site’s remnants: the original nuclear shelter, a time capsule that has preserved the artefacts and decor from the ’60s, the master machinist’s house that offers a glimpse into how the bunker operated and the intervention above ground by AART with a cafe and exhibition spaces. Four black boxes, that reveal nothing of their function stand blankly, surrounded by the thicket of the Danish natural landscape. Adding to the mysterious aura of the site, the four blocks of the museum architecture are clad in anodised aluminium. With time, the cladding will weather and the black will turn to rust red, the facade’s patinated grain merging with the other relics surrounding it. Further enhancing the myth of the bunker’s secret, the facade design incorporates a dynamic fenestration system, opening to reveal the museum within or shutting out the outside world, blank walls that hold the site’s memory.
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The original nuclear bunker was preserved in its entirety after being shut down Image: Rasmus Hjortshøj
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Entrance to the nuclear bunker Image: Rasmus Hjortshøj
“The boxes do not reveal their content and piqué the curiosity of the visitors right from their arrival. Thus, the boxes inscribe themselves into the complete experience for the visitor — an experience characterised by its distinctive mystic and historical secrecy all the way through,” Tyrrestrup elaborates on the public building’s minimal design. Within the museum’s new exhibition space, seven sections exhaustively detail the causes, events and consequences of the Cold War and its climate of paranoia. While the exhibition panels follow a storyline; the open layout allows visitors to wander around the space freely. The cultural building designed by AART also allows easier access to the nuclear shelter for visitors.
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The exhibition areas detail the timeline of the Cold War Image: Rasmus Hjortshøj
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As the Cold War museum foregrounds the nuclear bunker as an artefact, the exhibition space includes a model of the bunker Image: Rasmus Hjortshøj
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Apart from exhibition spaces, the design by AART includes a cafe for visitors to be able to rest Image: Rasmus Hjortshøj
While the bunker is tangible proof of an era marked by the real possibility of nuclear fallout, the present is similarly fraught with ongoing war and annihilation. Increasingly, museums have been designed that deal with actual remnants, ruins that provide continuity to the histories of a particular place; connected not so much to the uncertainties of the past, but to preoccupations of the present. Whether this is through adaptive reuse or by providing an accessible space for people to engage with the history of the site, it allows for the histories to provide contextuality today. Where museums display paraphernalia, here the architectural form itself becomes an artefact of history; there to caution against unquestioned progress.
Project Details
Name: REGAN Vest – The Danish Cold War Museum
Location: Rold Skov, Denmark
Client: Nordjyske Museer
Collaborators:
Engineer: Niras
Exhibition architect: Thøgersen & Stouby
Landscape architect: SLA
Area: 1200sqm
Year of Completion: 2023