Thursday Posting: Defense Architecture: Bunkers

Fortifications

“Approximately 1,500 bunkers were built during World War II along the French shores to forestall an Allied landing—“the Atlantic Wall.” Decommissioned after the Allied invasion of Normandy, this elaborate defense system now lies abandoned.”

-Rosecrans Baldwin

Virilio, Paul.  Bunker Archeology.  “The Frightening Beauty of Bunkers.”  Princeton Architectural Press, 1975.

In this article Virilio discusses his youth and how you grew to find bunkers appealing, and even comforting.Virilio states:“I see it clearly now as a case of intuition and also as a convergence between the reality of the structure and the fact of its implantation alongside the ocean: a convergence between my awareness of spatial phenomena.”  After Virilio’s first encounter with a bunker, he began to hunt for them, driven by a purely archeological purposes.  Upon viewing different bunkers, he found himself asking the questions: “why would these extraordinary constructions, compared to the seaside villas, not be perceived or even recognized? Why this analogy between the funeral archetype and military architecture? Why this insane situation looking out over the ocean?”  Virilio points out that in previous eras, fortifications and bunkers were oriented towards a specific passageway, valley or port.  The bunkers from the WWII era are placed “at the summit of dunes, cliffs, and across beaches.”  The essay then goes on to describe the delight and intrigue Virilio had in finding bunkers.  He states: “My activities often led me into teeming ports, and what most surprised and intrigued me there was finding once again in the middle of courtyards and gardens my concrete shelters; their blind, low mass and rounded profile were out of tune with the urban environment. These objects had been left behind, and were colorless; their gray cement relief was silent witness to a warlike climate.”

This article interested me in its topic of abandonment, which is a major theme in my current series.  While Virilio only discusses the abandonment of bunkers, he does a good job analyzing them against their surroundings, and brings up important points about their placement and original use.