A newly opened James Bond museum in Austria offers visitors the experience of life in a super villain’s lair.
007 Elements can be found perched atop Gaislachkogl, a mountain near the Alpine town of Solden. This was one of the locations featured in the most recent movie, Spectre (2015). It’s right next to an equally glitzy restaurant, which served as a high end doctor’s surgery.
The stark, modern design nestles deep into the mountainside and offers icy vistas across the Alps, while the various galleries are decked out with the kind of high-tech frippery you’d expect of a rogue billionaire bent on world domination.
Designed by architect Johann Obermoser and 007 art director Neal Callow, the site also offers a series of immersive experiences that show how Spectre was made alongside exhibits dedicated to other movies in the franchise. There’s little actual memorabilia on show as the building itself is the real star – although a plane from Spectre will be on display.
The museum states: “Our aim with 007 Elements is to tell the story of the making of 007 films in an ultra-modern, emotive and engaging way.”
“We want to use this incredible location to place our guests into Bond’s environment, and bring the stories to life in a unique and unforgettable way.
“Visitors are taken on a multi-sensory journey, with emotive soundscapes, dramatic programmed lighting, and high-quality visual projections.
“The structure of the storytelling, the rhythm of the spaces within the building, and the movement between light and shadow was designed to give visitors an experience closer to a movie than a traditional museum.”
The museum will open to the public from July 12. It’s accessible via gondola, which reaches the 3,000m summit in minutes. Scaling the mountain in a black Kevlar bodysuit would take significantly longer and we can probably assume that parachuting in is out.
