The vibe of war, vegetables and whips still hangs over the 80 rooms of this Nazi-era bunker turned shining beacon of art. It's all thanks to the vision of Christian Boros, advertising guru and collector of art by practitioners currently writing history, Olafur Eliasson, Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas and Wolfgang Tilmanns among them. A selection of his treasures can be viewed on guided tours (also in English). Book online as early as possible.

During the tour you’ll also pick up fascinating nuggets about the war-scarred shelter that preserves the original fittings, pipes, steel doors and vents. Built for 2000 people, its dank rooms crammed in twice as many during the heaviest air raids towards the end of the war. Afterwards, the Soviets briefly used it as a POW prison before it assumed a more benign role as a fruit and vegetable storeroom in GDR times, which spawned the nickname ‘Banana Bunker.’ In the 1990s, the claustrophobic warren saw some of Berlin’s naughtiest techno raves and fetish parties. Boros finally snapped it up in 2003.