Due to its strategical position near the harbor of Esbjerg, the area of Blåvand was heavily fortified and some 50 bunkers were built around here. Some of them were truly monumental such as the so-called Tirpitz bunker, a 3,5 meter thick concrete fortification built in late 1944 to house a huge 38cm gun turret recovered from a decommissioned German battleship. Yet, the Tirpitz bunker was not completed before the capitulation of Germany in May 1945, and the naval battery was never installed.
After the war, the Allies blown up most of the bunkers in the area but the main fortification was saved and eventually converted by the municipality of Varde into a small museum dedicated to the history of the Atlantic Wall in 1991.
 
In 2012, the Museums of Varde, with the financial support of the A.P. Møller Foundation, took the decision to enlarge the museum and create a cultural center, the Blåvand Bunkermuseum, accommodating four distinct venues: a bunker museum, and amber museum, a museum of local history (called Histolarium), and a gallery for temporary exhibitions.”
Acclaimed architectural firm BIG – Bjarke Ingels Group was therefore commissioned to design the new museum complex.