43,000-Square-Meter Nazi Submarine Base Turned Into The World's Largest Digital Art Gallery

About 80 years ago a Nazi submarine base was built in Bordeaux, France, which has now been transformed into a digital art gallery. At the time of its construction, the base was designated to house 43 U-Boats, a class of German submarines used during World War II.

Eighty years later, the submarine base is now the Bassins de Lumières, the largest digital art gallery in the world.

The gallery opened in June. While it was scheduled to open in spring, the COVID-19 pandemic forced officials to push back the plan a bit. According to the gallery’s site, this is among the five major structures that were built in France in World War II. The other four are in La Rochelle, Saint-Nazaire, Lorient, and Brest.

The German started building this base in 1941, using 6,500 contractors, volunteers, and forced laborers. It began operation in 1943 but was used for less than two years. The submarine base is made of reinforced concrete with a capacity of nearly 594,654 cubic meters. It was frequently targeted in bomb raids but wasn’t damaged. The German left Bordeaux in 1944.

Inside Bassins de Lumières, there are four pools, each measuring 110 meters, which visitors can cross using walkways. The gallery can support 12,077 square meters of projections with the help of 90 video projectors as well as 100 kilometers of fiber optic cable.

Bassins de Lumières art gallery works by projecting giant digital renderings by famous artists, which are set to music, onto its walls. Some of its walls measure over 91 meters in length and 11 meters in height. Especially, the pools will reflect the artwork, contributing to an immersive experience for visitors.

For the art gallery to work, officials had to install new equipment for safety purposes, but they succeeded and it’s all worth it.

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