29 Oct 2012

Military bunkers marketed as great for storing art

8:06 am on 29 October 2012

The Swiss government is selling a disused military bunker as an ideal storage space for works of art.

The bunker near Lake Lucerne is being marketed as a site to store valuables. It is on offer at 386,000 Swiss francs ($US417,000).

The chambers are climate-controlled and were once used to stockpile munitions.

Soaring art sales have increased the volume of work in storage, causing a build-up of value and creating an unforeseen new risk factor for the insurance industry.

Switzerland has many disused military facilities. Some were built at the height of the cold war in the 1960s.

But since the collapse of the Soviet Union, many sites are closed and some are now for sale.

Swiss Data Safe already stockpiles paintings, bullion and computer data in a bunker near in the town of Amsteg. It was originally intended as a refuge for the Swiss government in case of invasion or nuclear war.