136-143 PAUL VIRILIO / BUNKER ARCHAEOLOGY

I was most impressed by a feeling, internal and external, of being immediately crushed. The battered walls sunk into the ground gave this small block-house a solid base; a dune had invaded the interior space, and the thick layer of sand over the wooden floor made the place even narrower. Some clothes and bicycles had been hidden here; the object no longer made the same sense, though there was still protection here.
A complete series of cultural memories came to mind: the Egyptian mastabas, the Etruscan tombs, the Aztec structures… as if this piece of artillery fortification could be identified as a funeral ceremony, as if the Todt Organization could manage only the organization of a religious space… This was nothing but a broad outline, but from then on my curiosity would be quickened; my vacation had just come to an end, and I could guess that these littoral boundary stones were to teach me much about the era, and much about myself

/ EXCERPT FROM BUNKER ARCHAEOLOGY, Princeton Architectural Press [translated by George Collins], 2008








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