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SOURCE-LISTED WALL RECORD

Berlin Wall — Merone

Merone, Italy

45.783° N / 9.243° E

Evidence Listed, level 1 of 4

Nothing from the holder or another institution, and no press report, has been found yet; the record rests on inventory listings. It is published so the piece can be found and checked — the holder's own account, a press report or a recent photograph would strengthen it. How records are graded

Private / Limited AccessOutdoor
Original abstract illustration, not a photograph of this piece.

The record

Bought at the Monaco auction for 20,000 marks by a cement works director, for a factory art museum that no longer exists.

When collectors and dealers gathered in Monaco in June 1990 for the first great auction of wall segments, the managing director of the Italian cement works Cementeria di Merone was among them. He paid 20,000 marks for a segment that the German weekly Stern judged to be extraordinarily ugly, and set it up in front of the factory's own art museum.

Both of those institutions have since changed. The Cementeria di Merone was sold to the international building materials group Holcim during the 1990s, and the art museum was wound up. An enquiry established that the segment is still there. It stands in the garden of the works — a tonne of concrete bought as art, outliving the museum it was bought for.

How did it get here?

Bought for 20,000 marks by the managing director of Cementeria di Merone at the Monaco auction of June 1990.

Sources

Listed by the Federal Foundation as #134 and by the Berlin Wall Archive as #253.

Federal Foundation — Berlin Wall worldwide, site entry ↗
The purchase for 20,000 marks at the June 1990 Monaco auction by the director of Cementeria di Merone, Stern's verdict on the segment, its siting at the works art museum, the sale of the company to Holcim and the dissolution of the museum, and its present position in the works garden.
Inventory listingSource accessed 2026-09-17

Federal Foundation — Berlin Wall worldwide ↗
The source lists this place as a Berlin Wall location. Coordinates, where supplied, are source-reported and may represent a general area. This is not independent verification of authenticity, current presence, or public access.
Inventory listingSource accessed 2026-09-17 · Source record 134

Berlin Wall Archive ↗
The source lists this place as a Berlin Wall location. Coordinates, where supplied, are source-reported and may represent a general area. This is not independent verification of authenticity, current presence, or public access.
Inventory listingSource accessed 2026-09-17 · Source record 253

Our sourcing standards

No photograph of this one has been published. If you have taken one, or know when it arrived or who gave it, we would like to hear. Contribute to this record

On the map

Position as an inventory reported it. It may mark a general area rather than the piece itself.

Part of these collections

Nearest pieces

Nothing else in the atlas is within 100 km. These are the nearest.

  1. 163 kmBerlin Wall — EmmenEmmen, SwitzerlandOn display
  2. 167 kmSt. Christoph, ASt. Christoph, AustriaUnknown