Inside Three
Private Collections
Across Europe 

(Collecting)Maison Ë traces the evolution of three European art collections that have moved from private vision to public encounter. Our examination delves into the impulses and convictions that moved the minds behind these collections to assemble and share their worlds of art, and considers how their decisions—once made visible—continue to generate meaning, transforming the act of collecting into an art form all of its own.

Between vine-covered slopes and the rising Dolomites, the Fondazione Antonio Dalle Nogare occupies a discreet concrete structure designed by Walter Angonese with Andrea Marastoni. Envisioned as a setting where the domestic and the institutional meet, the building was excavated directly from the mountain, retaining a material link to its site: the removed stone was ground and folded back into the concrete, giving the structure coherence and depth.

The foundation’s focus on conceptual and minimal art from the 1960s to the present runs through both its collection and its program of talks and projects. Tombac, raw oak, and generous glazing temper the material rigor with warmth and light, while open rooms allow works of any scale to breathe. Site-specific commissions—such as a library façade by Robert Barry and a garden pavilion by Dan Graham—further extend the dialogue between art and architecture. “I have always felt a certain affinity with art less bound to its decorative or retinal side—to borrow from Duchamp—and more driven by a particular vision,” Dalle Nogare tells MAISON Ë. “Since the avant-gardes, what matters is not the image art depicts, but the one it creates in the mind of the observer—what in Italian we call immaginare.”

Dalle Nogare’s collection grew from that conviction, guided by study and dialogue. “My choices stem from a combination of instinct and personal taste, refined through knowledge of artists, and their context and motivations,” he shares. “There’s always something indefinable—a kind of resonance—that draws me to a work.”Before his foundation took form, Dalle Nogare spent years researching other private institutions and working with his chosen architects to translate his sensibility into physical space. “The relationship between container and content is very important,” he says. “I wanted a building that was welcoming to art, with its own character—minimal but not anonymous—without forgetting its primary function as a container.” The result is a series of open, flexible volumes where concrete and daylight establish a clear, quiet rhythm for viewing.

Over time, Dalle Nogare’s approach to collecting has deepened, rather than expanded. “What I have learned is that honesty pays off,” he reflects. “When you make heartfelt choices, you never go wrong. For me, art is a companion in life, prompting questions I would never otherwise have thought of and making me want to share those questions and reflections with others.” That ethos extends through the foundation’s program of exhibitions, publications, and public discussions, each defined through careful exchange with artists and curators. “When I was young, I was interested in more figurative and classical works,” he says of the trajectory of his collection. “Then I encountered conceptual art and something clicked—like meeting the master you’ve been waiting for on your spiritual path.”

Set into a hillside above the River Drau in Austria’s southern Carinthia, Museum Liaunig is almost invisible from a distance, its linear concrete form revealing only a narrow glass band to the landscape. Designed by the Vienna-based architecture firm, querkraft, the museum opened in 2008 and was listed as a protected monument in 2012. Its restrained geometry and precise use of daylight have made it a landmark of contemporary Austrian architecture.

Since 2015, the museum has been directed by Peter Liaunig, who runs an architecture practice of his own in Vienna. In the post, he succeeded his father, Herbert W. Liaunig (1945–2023), whose collecting began in the 1960s with the most modest of means. “My father came from a simple background and became fascinated by art as a schoolboy after meeting a collector with works by the Brücke artists,” Liaunig tells Maison Ë. “When he came to Vienna as a student, he was introduced to artists by Drago J. Prelog, and soon my parents began buying what they could afford—sometimes in instalments, sometimes just to fill their apartment walls.” His mother, too, collected, favoring concrete art. Growing up among artists, Liaunig received his first painting as a christening gift and began collecting as a teenager.

The museum’s core remains contemporary art post-1945, framed within a broader view of artistic development. “The historical collections also underscore people’s need for beauty. They act as complement and counterpoint,” notes Liaunig. The underground galleries hold these earlier works—European portrait miniatures, historic glass, and pieces from diverse craft traditions—while the main sequence of halls above ground displays painting, sculpture, and installations from the post-war period onward. Fittingly for an architect, Liaunig sees each encounter as framed by the building itself. Natural light, introduced through high-level openings, defines the viewing experience. “We are very proud to have such a well-functioning building with natural light,” says Liaunig. “Daylight will always be the ultimate when looking at modern art.” The museum’s first major display of historic material, the Akan Gold Collection, was placed underground to evoke a treasure chamber; later expansions extended that idea with flexible vitrines designed to accommodate smaller artefacts.

Across the museum grounds, a sculpture park of “hills and niches” designed with Weidlfein Landscape Architects uses the earth displaced during construction to create gentle hills and hollows that now frame large-scale works. The open air collection includes pieces by Austrian and international sculptors such as János Megyik, whose Bilderwerk (2000–2016) rises from the grass with geometric precision. “Visitors make extensive use of the park,” says Liaunig. “Walking in nature is an important counterbalance to the many sensory impressions inside the building.”

Nearly two decades after opening, the museum continues to evolve through collaborations with other collections, presenting broader and more connected narratives of post-war art. Liaunig’s outlook remains grounded in long-term stewardship rather than expansion for its own sake. “We want to continue doing good work for many years to come and make ourselves indispensable,” he shares. “That means constant exchange, innovation, and hard work.”

In central Berlin, the Boros Collection occupies a former wartime bunker whose weight and mass still dominate the street. Built in 1942 as an air-raid shelter, the structure later served as a prison, a storage depot housing tropical fruit—earning it the nickname of “Banana Bunker”—and a techno club, before Christian and Karen Boros acquired it in 2003. Working with Jens Casper and his practice Realarchitektur, the couple transformed the 3,000-square-meter concrete block into a private museum that opened to the public in 2008, adding a penthouse above for their own residence.

Christian Boros, who made his name in advertising, approaches collecting with the same deliberate mix of intuition and analysis that has guided his professional life.  “I don’t separate the two,” he told Art Design Café shortly after the bunker opened to the public. “I am a visual person, and at the same time a thinking person. You could say two things are needed in advertising and art: a good eye and a good brain.” That balance underpins the collection’s evolution—intellectual yet instinctive, aesthetic yet strategic.

The bunker is accessible to the public exclusively though small-group guided tours intended to encourage slow viewing and conversation. This modality of engagement with the works replaces the neutrality of a museum with the intimacy of private encounter.