Bundeswehr Military Museum by Kolossos licensed under the terms of the CC BY 3.0
This week’s crazy building is the Bundeswehr Military History Museum in Dresden, Germany.
This building’s original use was as an armory in the 1870s, but believe it or not, it has been a museum since 1897. In that time, it’s been a Nazi museum, a Soviet museum and an East German museum, shifting every few years but always reflecting the society around it.
Starting in 2005, it underwent a massive 6-year renovation to become the remarkable looking structure it is today.
The designers wanted to create a strong contrast with the rest of the building’s history—and a stark reminder of why it’s really there. So they added an aggressive, “arrowhead”-like structure breaching the center of the otherwise classical facade. The arrowhead is 5 stories high and provides a 98-foot viewing platform from which visitors can observe the rapidly modernizing city environs.
It was a bold choice. Will history treat it kindly? Only time will tell.
