Bunker 101 | schoeneheilewelt

BUNKER 101
Exhibition at

passagen 2013

Exibithion design & project management for "Bunker 101" at the international furniture fair "imm" 2013 in Cologne in an old bunker from WW2.

After 5 years without any appearance at the furniture fair in the "University of Applied Science Aachen" decided to be present again on the international furniture fair in their adjacent city Cologne. We became the chance to realize this exhibition.

The main difficulty was the limited time. After the facility of design became the permit to realize this exhibition we had two month for planning and scouting a free location.
The only free location in the center of "Passagen" in Colognes trend quarter "Ehrenfeld" was the old high bunker of world war two. The difficulty here was an ongoing dispute between the administration of the local government in Cologne and the property management of the republic of Germany and some local artist association which were all claiming the Bunker for them.

After a lot of diplomatic legwork we managed to get the location and realize this exhibition with a very limited budget on 300 square meter.

The result was a very successful exhibition with exclusive positive encouragement.

In this unique building we created a special atmosphere and present it with mixed accents of bright and dimmed light.

An eye catching element of strings and black light was inviting the visitors through the interlaced infrastructure of the bunker to discover the different works of the students accompanied by an ambient soundtrack created special for this exhibition.

At the end of the exhibition we integrated a lounge area where drinks were served and a daily after fair lounge was hosted. In partnership with the famous local techno label "Treibstoff" we held the farewell party.

300m2 planning

After 5 years without any attendance to the furniture fair we could show a lot of great students work on this exhibition.

We did split the bunker into two areas. The students area at the beginning where we showed furniture, lamps and furniture models from all regular semesters.

At the end of the exhibition we integrated a gastronomic lounge area surrounded by the works of the graduate students.

For more variety we integrated some interdisciplinary works such as movies, photographies and a light installation in separated rooms.

To suit the budget we worked with sockets made from EU-Pallets covered by black boards and highlighted with old neon lights. Old studio lights and special heaters were taken the bunker in a likeable atmosphere in the coldest month of the year.
To avoid cost to rent furniture for the lounge we created armchairs and sofas by bending cargo bags on the pallets. This material is usually used in the shipping industry and became the inspiration for our later product "Baron"