Bunker landscapes: from traces of a traumatic past to key elements in the citizen identity

Giulia Cherchi;Donatella Rita Fiorino;Maria Rita Pais;Maria Serena Pirisino

2023-01-01

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Abstract

Abandoned as watchmen along the European coastlines and national borders, bunkers are monolithic and super-resistant architectures, considered an academic taboo for a long time: as it is known, defined as ‘difficult heritage’, they are material and immaterial traces linked to traumatic and cumbersome events of a recent past. By losing their strategic position in the defence of the territory, they gradually became ‘modern ruins’. After a long period of neglect, bunkers have been recently included in rehabilitation, enhancement and reuse programs as part of a territorial and historical network, essential places able to support and encourage collective memories and citizen identity. Starting from these considerations, the proposed research is focused on the investigation of two case studies: the system of batteries of Plan Barron in Lisbon, and the bunker network of South Sardinia, in Italy. Plan Barron includes eight batteries that were built between 1948 and 1958 by a British-Portuguese commission to defend the capital and Setúbal’s ports. Four of them are in a good state of conservation, one disappeared and the rest abandoned and neglected since 1999. On the other hand, the system of bunkers deployed along the coastline of South Sardinia was built during the WWII, mainly located near the major urban centres and ports, both in urban and landscape contexts. Once lost their defence function, they have been abandoned and, after several decades of neglect, some of them disappeared and others are still awaiting appropriate conservation and enhancement processes. These case studies are analysed in the paper under landscape, historical, architectural and archaeological terms, through indirect and direct analysis, in order to highlight their formal, typological, spatial, dimensional, technological and materic features and the relationship to their different environmental context. The research aim is twofold: 1. to create appropriate instruments able to trigger value acknowledgement and enhancement processes; 2. To provide guidelines for opportune strategies of reappropriation of the places, attributing to the bunker a key role in the policies of management and cultural tourism.