Let’s Panic!
I’m totally hyped out from Hurricane Irene, and feel like giving myself something to really be scared about. Just thinking about ever having to hole up in one of these shelters while the world ends gives me pause. I suppose I should mention that I happened to catch the movie Panic Room twice this week. Won’t you join me below, as I ascend to the next level of unnecessary and imaginary alarm.
Some of these structures were built to withstand A-bombs, biological warfare and/or zombies, and some of them probably don’t offer protection from anything more than the sunlight. But they’re all constructed of hardcore materials like raw or reinforced concrete and steel, or are completely underground, and they all give me a real sense of impending doom.
So now it’s time to play one of my favorite games, Pick One Or Die. The game is played when viewing several items at once, say on a page from a magazine or catalog, or in a shop window - and you have to pick ONE item or DIE. In this case, it’s any of the fifteen structures below, and you’ve just got word that the world is ending, so you have to pick one to run into for shelter, or die. Go! Go, now! Run for your life!
1) Pillbox bunkers in Albania
2) Concrete house in Japan, designed by Kazunori Fujimoto
3) Dora, a German WWII era submarine bunker
4) ‘Teletubby’ eco-bunker built into a hillside in England
5) Underground complex of Girard B. Henderson, Las Vegas
6) KWK Promes’ Safe House, outside of Warsaw, Poland
7) Bunker Turned Into Studios by Index Architects, Frankfurt
8) Bunker on the Danish West Coast
9) Reinforced concrete house in Japan, by TSC Architects
9) Dutch bunker from 1940
10) Bunker house by Thomas Bendel
11) Entrance to the declassified Bunker at The Greenbrier Resort, West Virginia
12) Converted bunker in Bremen, Germany, by Rainer Mielke
13) The Underground Bahnhof Office, Stockholm, Sweden
14) Entrance to Beehive Casemate, Sydney, Australia
15) Fallout shelter for the Do-It-Yourselfer
Notes:
- I have purposely excluded the Wikileaks bunker in Sweden, because that is, without a doubt, the coolest bunker ever, and it would be unfair to the others if included on this list.
- PICK ONE OR DIE was invented by one of my girlfriends to ease boredom while standing on our feet looking at fashion magazines when we worked retail together many years ago.
Related:
- View images of bomb shelter interiors from Richard Ross’s Waiting for the End of the World
- Designing for Destruction: The Rise of the Bomb Shelter
Oh hello there, I didn’t expect to see you this far down in the post. I suppose I should tell you which structure I’ve chosen to party in like it’s the end of the world, then, huh? Well, I’d go for either #11, because of the very Elsie de Wolfe trellis pattern wallpaper, or #13, because I love Scandinavian modern. Which one did you pick?
