‘Radical Architecture for the End of the World’, OMI Rotterdam, November 2023 – January 2024

During the Cold War (1954-1991) hundreds of nuclear shelters have been built in The Netherlands to protect the public for a nuclear attack. Artist Kees van Leeuwen is fascinated by the radical architecture of these objects and the way the community reacts on the threat of the end of the world. Question is: how do you design a building to survive a nuclear attack? What do you need to survive weeks in underground isolation? How to inform the community about the precautions to take.

The exhibition shows different aspects of an era which for decades has determined the order of the world. By brochures with information and instructions citizens are informed theoretically of the dangers and mainly how to act to protect themselves. A big map of Rotterdam which showed all the shelters where you could hide in those days. Rotterdam with 45.000 places was quite well equipped.

The minimalistic spaces, the design and the experience of these, are explored by floor plans, studies of form and a fictitious bunker, especially made for the exhibition, which gives one the oppressed sensation the space of the shelter gives.

Photography: Ossip van Duivenbode