The research explores the decommissioned military sites and artefacts built during the Cold War in Italy, such as nuclear weapon stores, communication and radar systems, military airfields, aviation and naval sites, and missile defence structures. The objectives are the identification and knowledge of military complexes built between 1947 and 1989 that the armed forces decommissioned, listing and mapping them and describing the selected systems’ architectural, technological and functional features. The research focuses only on the decommissioned military sites: the artefacts become available as valuable assets for their possible use, economically and functionally, and as an added value for the communities. For this reason, in addition to the historical and architectural analysis, it was essential to investigate the timing and mode of the decommissioning process. The sites under study, especially those connected with the missiles and communications, are part of peculiar systems for the Cold War, become obsolete after a few years of use and have been decommissioned, in some cases, before the end of the period of contention between the two blocks. These include missile sites (Jupiter, Nike, Hawk, Cruise), telecommunications sites (Ace High Tropo Scatter), research and communications sites (test sites, NATO headquarters). The areas with a more extended history - for instance, those built before the Cold War and lasted longer - will not be part of the research. These sites, especially airports and naval bases, barracks and military schools, have a multi-layered history and do not represent the specificity of a nuclear war in their complex infrastructural features. On the contrary, the analysis of the sites related to the Cold War highlights the strict connection between military strategy, architecture and technology they had to host. This systemic architecture, tailored as the infrastructure around specific bellicose aims and operations, was used for a concise cycle of use, after which it became obsolete. The site systems described in Chapters 2 and 3 were chosen primarily for this impermanence because of to the close link between the instrument of war as a site and the technology adopted, and the site’s lack of adaptability to rapid changes in war technology. This process is best exemplified by the sites hosting the Jupiter missiles (from 1960 to 1963) and Cruise missiles (from 1983 to 1991). The peculiarity of these systems is that once the technology changed, the site was considered unusable, and in most cases, the solution was to abandon them. In addition to the problematic adaptability to rapidly and irreversibly changing military technologies, the short history of use of most of these sites also offers evidence of how difficult it would be to put them back into the current defence strategy of the armed forces today due to the effect that decades of neglect have had on the structures. This situation opens an engaging reflection on how to preserve, reuse, or notify these material testimonies, which used to contain the most dangerous weapons in circulation. Since studies on Italian Cold War military sites are lacking in the field of history of architecture and architectural preservation, systematic and homogenous knowledge of these specific complexes on the whole national territory is necessary. Furthermore, this could also help overcome the peculiarity of the segmented military forces organisation, which does not facilitate the integration into systematic knowledge. Studies on the military matter must be approached by taking into account the fragmented nature of the organisation of the armed forces. Starting from the analysis, the problematisation of the lack of reuse and protection strategies for the material traces of this part of history is a possible outcome. With the recognition of these areas as specific territorial and economic resources, the research presents the need for strategies in their reuse and questions whether some of these artefacts can be considered heritage and should therefore be preserved in the future. At the moment, it is not possible to protect any of these buildings in the context of the Italian legislative framework since they were built less than 70 years ago. This research aims to establish the relationship between the decommissioned military sites and the general framework of the strategic sources developed during and for the Cold War. In order to reflect on the possible prospects of these sites, it is essential to understand the role - both political and territorial - that Italy played in the Cold War and, consequently, the typology and consistency (extension, distribution, architectural and structural features, materials) of the Italian decommissioned military sites, together with their geography and relationships within their systems. Necessary to catalogue and list this information, the localisation of the sites in a map, in some cases supported by the use of GIS, is one of the current study results. The sites inserted in the map are described with basic information about their denomination, location, decommissioning process and ownership. The risk is to lose the sites and related knowledge before it could be possible to preserve them, which resides both in the material remains and in the memory of the people who have worked and served in these places. A reflection on the protection of the sites would have more success when the generation who has lived during the Cold War has not disappeared yet. It is vital to record these intangible features, part of the memory of one site, with its material traces, quality and characters, and open a discussion on the criteria for the recognition for protection in the framework of Italian law. The archival records regarding the mentioned complexes are still only partly accessible due to the temporal proximity of the events related to the sites and the dispersion of the sources between entities of competence. Therefore, gathering all the possible information and documentation, tangible and intangible, by recording the most important sites is essential. First, the analysis and description of the architecture of these systems are crucial for their knowledge. On-site recognition of Cold War decommissioned military sites in Italy has supported the research to understand which organisations and individuals are interested in these complexes and the difficulties in managing and valorising them. A few of the visited sites are part of both successful and unsuccessful local initiatives that have brought attention to their reuse and led to some experts’ study of their history. The common feature of these (proposed or carried out) openings is that they are initiatives from private or local authorities and do not involve safeguarding from Italian legislation. The reuse of the Cold War sites described as necessary for their survival does not always help enhance their values and sometimes implies the loss of tangible and intangible elements of a site. Also, a first inspection of the decommissioned complexes, which have been reused, showed several problems. We can mention the excessive, unsystematic and unscientific collection and exhibition of essential elements or the damage or loss some sites have experienced due to the need for use applied without considering the materiality and historical evidence. The awareness of the meanings and historical, technical and use interests around these sites will be raised following several methodological steps: - the state-of-art analysis of Cold War architecture studies and the identification, preservation and reuse project initiated in other international contexts. The analysis of two specific cases has been carried out, opening the exploration of contemporary but very different approaches to the identification of countries belonging to divergent political strategies during the Cold War: Sweden as a neutral state and the United Kingdom as a member of the NATO Alliance; - the Italian historical and strategical context analysis during the period and the resulting deployment of sites on the Italian territory; - the study of the classification localisation of the military sites, the types of building use, and their decommissioning process is recorded using comparative categories and systems inventory sheets; - the description of five site systems exemplary of the systemic architecture peculiar to missile and communication sites. The sites have been chosen because of their connection to international and national historical events, their presence in published bibliography, and, above all because they represent a whole group of sites with specific technology for the Cold War Italian Strategy. some policies and international experiences for the recognition of interest are analysed to discuss principles, objectives and steps towards the preservation or reuse of these complexes.
La presente ricerca esplora i siti e i manufatti militari dismessi costruiti durante la Guerra Fredda in Italia, come depositi di armi nucleari, sistemi di comunicazione e radar, campi di aviazione militare, siti aeronautici e navali, strutture di difesa missilistica. Gli obiettivi sono l’identificazione e la conoscenza dei complessi militari costruiti tra il 1947 e il 1989 che le forze armate hanno dismesso, elencandoli e mappandoli e descrivendo le caratteristiche architettoniche, tecnologiche e funzionali dei sistemi selezionati. La ricerca si concentra solo sui siti militari dismessi, quei manufatti che si rendono disponibili come risorse per un loro possibile utilizzo, come valore aggiunto per le comunità, prima di tutto economico e funzionale. Per questo motivo, oltre all’analisi storica e architettonica, è stato fondamentale indagare i tempi e le modalità del processo di dismissione. I siti oggetto di studio, soprattutto quelli legati alla missilistica e alla comunicazione, fanno parte di sistemi peculiari della Guerra Fredda, sono diventati obsoleti dopo pochi anni di utilizzo e dismessi, in alcuni casi, prima della fine del periodo di contesa tra i due blocchi. Si tratta di siti missilistici (Jupiter, Nike, Hawk, Cruise), siti di telecomunicazioni (Ace High Tropo Scatter), siti di ricerca e comunicazione (siti di test, quartier generale della NATO). Le aree con una evoluzione più lunga - ad esempio quelle costruite prima della Guerra Fredda e rimaste in funzione più a lungo - sono escluse dalla ricerca. Questi siti, in particolare aeroporti e basi navali, caserme e scuole militari, hanno un palinsesto storico più stratificato e non rappresentano totalmente la specificità di una guerra nucleare. Al contrario, l’analisi dei siti specificatamente legati alla Guerra Fredda evidenzia la stretta connessione tra strategia militare, architettura e tecnologia che dovevano ospitare, nelle loro complesse caratteristiche infrastrutturali. Questa architettura sistemica, adattata a specifici obiettivi e operazioni belliche, è stata utilizzata per un ciclo conciso di utilizzo, dopo il quale è diventata obsoleta. I sistemi di siti descritti nei capitoli 2 e 3 sono stati scelti principalmente per questa temporaneità, a causa dello stretto legame tra lo strumento bellico come sito e la tecnologia adottata, e della mancanza di adattabilità del sito ai rapidi cambiamenti della strategia bellica. Questo processo è esemplificato al meglio dai siti che ospitano i missili Jupiter (dal 1960 al 1963) e i missili Cruise (dal 1983 al 1991). Nel momento in cui la tecnologia è cambiata, il sito è stato considerato inutilizzabile e, nella maggior parte dei casi, la soluzione è stata quella di abbandonarlo. Oltre alla problematica adattabilità a tecnologie militari in rapida e irreversibile evoluzione, la breve storia di utilizzo della maggior parte di questi siti offre anche la prova di quanto sarebbe difficile reinserirli nell’attuale strategia di difesa delle forze armate oggi, a causa dell’effetto che decenni di abbandono hanno avuto sulle strutture. Questa situazione apre una riflessione su come conservare, riutilizzare o segnalare queste testimonianze materiali, che un tempo contenevano le armi più pericolose in circolazione. Poiché gli studi sui siti militari italiani della Guerra Fredda sono carenti nel campo della storia dell’architettura e della conservazione architettonica, è necessaria una conoscenza sistematica e omogenea di questi specifici complessi su tutto il territorio nazionale. Inoltre, ciò potrebbe aiutare a superare la peculiarità dell’organizzazione segmentata delle forze militari, che non facilita l’integrazione in una conoscenza sistematica. Gli studi sulla materia militare devono essere affrontati tenendo conto della natura frammentata dell’organizzazione delle forze armate. A partire da questa analisi, la problematizzazione della mancanza di strategie di riuso e protezione delle tracce materiali di questa parte della storia è un possibile risultato. Con il riconoscimento di queste aree come specifiche risorse territoriali ed economiche, la ricerca presenta la necessità di strategie per il loro riuso e si chiede se alcuni di questi manufatti possano essere considerati patrimonio e debbano quindi essere conservati in futuro. Al momento, non è possibile tutelare nessuno di questi edifici nel contesto del quadro legislativo italiano, poiché sono stati costruiti meno di 70 anni fa. Questa ricerca si propone di stabilire il rapporto tra i siti militari dismessi e il quadro generale delle strategie sviluppate durante e per la Guerra Fredda. Per riflettere sulle possibili prospettive di questi siti, è fondamentale comprendere il ruolo - politico e territoriale - che l’Italia ha avuto nella Guerra Fredda e, di conseguenza, la tipologia e la consistenza (estensione, distribuzione, caratteristiche architettoniche, strutturali e materiali) dei siti militari dismessi italiani, insieme alla loro geografia e alle relazioni all’interno dei loro sistemi. Necessaria per catalogare ed elencare queste informazioni, la localizzazione dei siti in una mappa, in alcuni casi supportata dall’uso del GIS, è uno dei risultati dello studio attuale. I siti inseriti nella mappa sono descritti con informazioni di base sulla loro denominazione, ubicazione, processo di dismissione e proprietà. Il rischio è quello di perdere i siti e la relativa conoscenza prima che sia possibile conservarli. Conoscenza che risiede sia nei resti materiali sia nella memoria delle persone che hanno lavorato e prestato servizio in questi luoghi. Una riflessione sulla tutela dei siti avrebbe più efficacia prima della scomparsa della generazione che ha vissuto durante la Guerra Fredda. È fondamentale documentare questo patrimonio immateriale, parte della memoria di un sito, insieme alle sue tracce materiali e i suoi caratteri, e aprire una discussione sulla loro tutela nel quadro della legge italiana. La documentazione archivistica relativa ai complessi citati è ancora solo parzialmente accessibile a causa della vicinanza temporale degli eventi legati ai siti e della dispersione delle fonti tra gli enti di competenza. È quindi essenziale raccogliere tutte le informazioni e la documentazione possibile, materiale e immateriale, documentando i siti più importanti. In primo luogo, l’analisi e la descrizione dell’architettura di questi sistemi sono fondamentali per la loro conoscenza. La ricognizione in loco dei siti militari dismessi della Guerra Fredda in Italia ha supportato la ricerca per capire quali organizzazioni e comunità sono interessati a questi complessi e le difficoltà di una loro gestione e valorizzazione. Alcuni dei siti visitati sono stati coinvolti in iniziative locali, sia di successo che insuccesso, che hanno portato l’attenzione sul loro riuso e lo studio della loro storia da parte di esperti. Queste iniziative (proposte o realizzate) hanno in comune una natura privata o di enti locali, che non prevede alcuna tutela da parte della legislazione italiana. Il riuso dei siti della Guerra Fredda, descritto come necessario per la loro sopravvivenza, non sempre contribuisce a valorizzarli e talvolta implica la perdita di elementi materiali e immateriali di un sito. Inoltre, una prima ispezione dei complessi dismessi, che sono stati riutilizzati, ha evidenziato diversi problemi. Possiamo citare la raccolta e l’esposizione eccessiva, non sistematica e non scientifica di elementi o il danneggiamento e la perdita che alcuni siti hanno subito a causa della necessità di utilizzo applicata senza considerare la loro testimonianza materiale e storica. La consapevolezza dei significati e degli interessi storici, tecnici e di utilità che ruotano attorno a questi siti sarà approfondita seguendo diverse fasi metodologiche - analisi dello stato dell’arte degli studi sull’architettura della Guerra Fredda e dei progetti di identificazione, conservazione e riuso avviati in altri contesti internazionali. L’analisi di due casi specifici ha permesso l’esplorazione di approcci contemporanei ma molto diversi all’identificazione di Paesi appartenenti a strategie politiche divergenti durante la Guerra Fredda: la Svezia come Stato neutrale e il Regno Unito come membro dell’Alleanza NATO; - descrizione del contesto storico e strategico italiano del periodo e conseguente localizzazione dei siti sul territorio nazionale; - classificazione comparativa dei tipi d’uso dei siti militari, attraverso l’utilizzo di tabelle di inventario; - documentazione di cinque sistemi di siti che sono esemplari dell’architettura sistemica propria dei siti missilistici e di comunicazione. I sistemi sono stati scelti per il loro legame con eventi storici internazionali e nazionali, per la loro presenza nella bibliografia pubblicata, ma soprattutto perché rappresentano un sistema di siti con tecnologia specifica per la strategia italiana durante la Guerra Fredda; - presentazione di alcune politiche ed esperienze internazionali per il riconoscimento dell’interesse testimoniale, per discutere principi, obiettivi e passi verso la conservazione o il riuso di questi complessi.
Material legacies of the cold war in Italy (1947-1989) : identification and mapping of decommissioned military sites : prospects on preservation and reuse
Bravaglieri, Simona
2022/2023
Abstract
The research explores the decommissioned military sites and artefacts built during the Cold War in Italy, such as nuclear weapon stores, communication and radar systems, military airfields, aviation and naval sites, and missile defence structures. The objectives are the identification and knowledge of military complexes built between 1947 and 1989 that the armed forces decommissioned, listing and mapping them and describing the selected systems’ architectural, technological and functional features. The research focuses only on the decommissioned military sites: the artefacts become available as valuable assets for their possible use, economically and functionally, and as an added value for the communities. For this reason, in addition to the historical and architectural analysis, it was essential to investigate the timing and mode of the decommissioning process. The sites under study, especially those connected with the missiles and communications, are part of peculiar systems for the Cold War, become obsolete after a few years of use and have been decommissioned, in some cases, before the end of the period of contention between the two blocks. These include missile sites (Jupiter, Nike, Hawk, Cruise), telecommunications sites (Ace High Tropo Scatter), research and communications sites (test sites, NATO headquarters). The areas with a more extended history - for instance, those built before the Cold War and lasted longer - will not be part of the research. These sites, especially airports and naval bases, barracks and military schools, have a multi-layered history and do not represent the specificity of a nuclear war in their complex infrastructural features. On the contrary, the analysis of the sites related to the Cold War highlights the strict connection between military strategy, architecture and technology they had to host. This systemic architecture, tailored as the infrastructure around specific bellicose aims and operations, was used for a concise cycle of use, after which it became obsolete. The site systems described in Chapters 2 and 3 were chosen primarily for this impermanence because of to the close link between the instrument of war as a site and the technology adopted, and the site’s lack of adaptability to rapid changes in war technology. This process is best exemplified by the sites hosting the Jupiter missiles (from 1960 to 1963) and Cruise missiles (from 1983 to 1991). The peculiarity of these systems is that once the technology changed, the site was considered unusable, and in most cases, the solution was to abandon them. In addition to the problematic adaptability to rapidly and irreversibly changing military technologies, the short history of use of most of these sites also offers evidence of how difficult it would be to put them back into the current defence strategy of the armed forces today due to the effect that decades of neglect have had on the structures. This situation opens an engaging reflection on how to preserve, reuse, or notify these material testimonies, which used to contain the most dangerous weapons in circulation. Since studies on Italian Cold War military sites are lacking in the field of history of architecture and architectural preservation, systematic and homogenous knowledge of these specific complexes on the whole national territory is necessary. Furthermore, this could also help overcome the peculiarity of the segmented military forces organisation, which does not facilitate the integration into systematic knowledge. Studies on the military matter must be approached by taking into account the fragmented nature of the organisation of the armed forces. Starting from the analysis, the problematisation of the lack of reuse and protection strategies for the material traces of this part of history is a possible outcome. With the recognition of these areas as specific territorial and economic resources, the research presents the need for strategies in their reuse and questions whether some of these artefacts can be considered heritage and should therefore be preserved in the future. At the moment, it is not possible to protect any of these buildings in the context of the Italian legislative framework since they were built less than 70 years ago. This research aims to establish the relationship between the decommissioned military sites and the general framework of the strategic sources developed during and for the Cold War. In order to reflect on the possible prospects of these sites, it is essential to understand the role - both political and territorial - that Italy played in the Cold War and, consequently, the typology and consistency (extension, distribution, architectural and structural features, materials) of the Italian decommissioned military sites, together with their geography and relationships within their systems. Necessary to catalogue and list this information, the localisation of the sites in a map, in some cases supported by the use of GIS, is one of the current study results. The sites inserted in the map are described with basic information about their denomination, location, decommissioning process and ownership. The risk is to lose the sites and related knowledge before it could be possible to preserve them, which resides both in the material remains and in the memory of the people who have worked and served in these places. A reflection on the protection of the sites would have more success when the generation who has lived during the Cold War has not disappeared yet. It is vital to record these intangible features, part of the memory of one site, with its material traces, quality and characters, and open a discussion on the criteria for the recognition for protection in the framework of Italian law. The archival records regarding the mentioned complexes are still only partly accessible due to the temporal proximity of the events related to the sites and the dispersion of the sources between entities of competence. Therefore, gathering all the possible information and documentation, tangible and intangible, by recording the most important sites is essential. First, the analysis and description of the architecture of these systems are crucial for their knowledge. On-site recognition of Cold War decommissioned military sites in Italy has supported the research to understand which organisations and individuals are interested in these complexes and the difficulties in managing and valorising them. A few of the visited sites are part of both successful and unsuccessful local initiatives that have brought attention to their reuse and led to some experts’ study of their history. The common feature of these (proposed or carried out) openings is that they are initiatives from private or local authorities and do not involve safeguarding from Italian legislation. The reuse of the Cold War sites described as necessary for their survival does not always help enhance their values and sometimes implies the loss of tangible and intangible elements of a site. Also, a first inspection of the decommissioned complexes, which have been reused, showed several problems. We can mention the excessive, unsystematic and unscientific collection and exhibition of essential elements or the damage or loss some sites have experienced due to the need for use applied without considering the materiality and historical evidence. The awareness of the meanings and historical, technical and use interests around these sites will be raised following several methodological steps: - the state-of-art analysis of Cold War architecture studies and the identification, preservation and reuse project initiated in other international contexts. The analysis of two specific cases has been carried out, opening the exploration of contemporary but very different approaches to the identification of countries belonging to divergent political strategies during the Cold War: Sweden as a neutral state and the United Kingdom as a member of the NATO Alliance; - the Italian historical and strategical context analysis during the period and the resulting deployment of sites on the Italian territory; - the study of the classification localisation of the military sites, the types of building use, and their decommissioning process is recorded using comparative categories and systems inventory sheets; - the description of five site systems exemplary of the systemic architecture peculiar to missile and communication sites. The sites have been chosen because of their connection to international and national historical events, their presence in published bibliography, and, above all because they represent a whole group of sites with specific technology for the Cold War Italian Strategy. some policies and international experiences for the recognition of interest are analysed to discuss principles, objectives and steps towards the preservation or reuse of these complexes.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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https://hdl.handle.net/10589/192127