Luxury bunkers are becoming the super-rich’s new architectural trend

In recent years, a parallel and almost invisible real-estate market has taken shape: that of private high-security shelters, conceived not only to offer protection in extreme situations but to guarantee luxury, exclusivity, and the full spectrum of ambitions that define a certain lifestyle. It is not an extension of survivalism, but an architectural grammar that merges innovation, systemic fears, and wellbeing experiences translated into habitat.

One example is Raven Ridge 11, part of the American complex Survival Condo, carved out of an old Atlas missile silo in Kansas: 15 underground floors with a swimming pool, hydroponic greenhouse, theater, library, climbing wall, bar, and even detention cells, a decontamination room, and a sniper post. The units, sold at figures that some estimates place in the millions of dollars, represent an architecture of security disguised as a residential community.

Even more exclusive is Aerie, the 300-million-dollar project developed by SAFE and announced for 2026: an underground club for 625 members, each equipped with a suite that can be modeled as a private residence—up to 20,000 square feet—immersed in an ecosystem of indoor pools, fine-dining restaurants, AI-assisted medical centers, and longevity-oriented facilities. Not a simple bunker, but a therapeutic enclave designed for a community that imagines survival as an extension of wellbeing.

In Central Europe, the Oppidum in the Czech Republic is among the most radical attempts to transform the underground into high-end residential architecture. Originally conceived as a Soviet-era security structure, today it is an underground palace with a surprisingly rich spatial articulation: suites shaped according to the grammar of luxury hospitality, an interior garden with a calibrated light cycle, and scenographic rooms with digital “windows” simulating impossible horizons.

The sequence of spas, cinemas, and armored wine cellars translates the aesthetics of the shelter into a language of absolute comfort. Here, the bunker merges with the elite residence, aiming not so much at survival as at the continuity of privilege under extreme conditions.

Responding to the same ambition is the network of underground shelters built and managed by Vivos, led by CEO Robert Vicino and active for over a decade. It includes at least three major complexes: xPoint in South Dakota (575 bunkers for thousands of people), a shelter in Indiana, and the massive Europa One in Germany.

Described as “the ultimate escape from doomsday,” Europa One—excavated into the karst rock of Thuringia—features an armored infrastructure designed to withstand nuclear explosions, chemical agents, and extreme events. Private quarters finished with noble materials stand alongside theaters, underground greenhouses, and collective spaces organized as a small autonomous settlement.

At first glance, these bunkers may seem like the extreme expression of private protection. In reality, the super-rich are colonizing not only the vertical space of skyscrapers but also the urban underground through what some define as a form of “luxury troglodytism”: monumental basements, defensive residences, and armored structures configured as devices of privilege.

The race for luxury shelters signals a shift in the psychology of power: elites no longer perceive themselves as guarantors of social stability but as subjects who must withdraw from the world they have contributed—both for better and for worse—to shaping. It is a dynamic that recalls what sociology—starting with Michael Hechter—defines as a form of “secession of the rich”: privileged groups carving out separate physical and symbolic spaces in order to preserve living conditions no longer guaranteed in the common sphere.

What may seem like an architectural absurdity opens up a larger question: who will have the right to be safe?

These architectures materialize a radical inequality—spatial segregation that does not simply aim to hide, but to guarantee the continuity of life for a few. Here, salvation is no longer a shared good: it is a purchasable service, and one that only a few can afford.

Opening image: The Aerie underground club. Courtesy Aerie