Bjarke Ingels unveils 'invisible' Tirpitz Museum in Danish bunker

The Tirpitz Museum, designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), opens in Blåvand, Denmark, transforming a WWII bunker into an innovative cultural complex. The 2,800 sqm museum, described by Varde Museums director Claus Kjeld Jensen as offering an 'incredible, unique, mysterious, surprising, dramatic, hidden' experience, cuts into the original concrete structure to create an antithesis to the heavy, hermetic bunker. Galleries are integrated into the dunes as an open oasis, with the bunker remaining a reference point to a dark heritage. The project, initiated in 2014, was funded by A. P. Møller, the Chastine Mc-Kinney Møller Foundation, the Nordea Foundation, the Augustinus Foundation, and the municipality of Varde. The exhibition program is curated by Dutch agency Tinker Imagineers, known for the Juliana Children's Hospital and the Mondrian House restyling. The museum can host up to four exhibitions simultaneously and aims for 100,000 visitors annually. For BIG, this marks a homecoming after winning the S.Pellegrino Flagship Factory competition in Italy, and continues their museum design expertise seen in the M/S Maritime Museum of Denmark (2013). Other BIG projects include the LEGO House in Billund, the MECA Cultural Center in Bordeaux, and the Smithsonian master plan in Washington D.C.