Page 233 - Beyond Decommissioning

214 Beyond Decommissioning

command of East Germany’s Ministry of National Defense. It can be visited upon tour
registration.
Object 825 GTS (Balaklava submarine base), Crimea. Top-secret military constructed dur-
l
ing the Cold War inside a mountain, today naval museum complex.
F4 Object (Ra ´kosi bunker), Budapest, Hungary. Several km long, formerly a secret nuclear
l
shelter, 45–50m below central Budapest. Exact number of entrances is unknown. It is state-
owned and managed by the Budapest Transport Company.
2
l D-0 ARK, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Konjic. A 61m bunker secretly constructed 1953–1979
at Konjic, 50km from Sarajevo, to shelter Marshal Tito, members of the Yugoslav govern-
ment, etc. Excavated 300m into a mountain, since 2011 it houses the D-0 ARK Underground
Biennial of Contemporary Art.
The cobalt irradiator “PANOZA” was designed and built by the Czech Nuclear
ˇ
Research Institute Rez ˇ. It is located underground in a massive rock of a former civil
defense shelter. The irradiator floor is about 3 3 m. From three sides it is shielded by
rock, its front wall is made of lead wedge bricks fixed in a metallic frame embedded in
the rock tunnel and welded to the steel plate that forms the horizontal floor. A rod-like
cobalt source of about 50 TBq is the basic component of the irradiator
(Podlaha, 2011).
The Czechoslovak government installed in 1935–38 a system of border fortifica-
tions as a protection against anticipated attacks from Germany. Construction was fast
and by September1938 (the Munich Pact), 264 “heavy objects” (blockhouses, case-
mates or artillery forts) and over 10,000 “light objects” (pillboxes) had been installed.
However, this barrier did not stop the Nazis. During WWII the Germans took away
much of the armor e.g. domes and crenels. A few fortifications were hit by German
shells or subjected to explosive testing and consequently were much damaged. Soon
after WWII most of the armor left was removed due to loss of its military worth and the
growing steel market. In the early Cold War, a new defense system was based on the
reuse of the prewar permanent fortifications, repaired and provided with new
weapons. After 1950, due to the increased tension between the Eastern and Western
Blocs, a more advanced system of fortifications was built. While the prewar heavy and
light objects were designed as monoliths of reinforced concrete, the new Soviet-type
bunkers were more like reinforced field fortifications, built from stone and
prefabricated concrete elements. Today a few “heavy objects” can be visited, others
are leased or on sale. A few more were converted into museums, others became
storehouses. The “Hanic ˇka” fort was refurbished in 1979–1993 for protection of
the Ministry of Interior staff, but soon after was made redundant. A museum was
established here (Ricky, 2013).
In 2016, the New York’s City Hall gave approval to the Lowline underground park.
The Lowline was conceived of as a complement to the Highline (Section 6.7.5). Either
project reuses old railways; while the Highline runs along elevated rail tracks, the
Lowline occupies an old underground trolley terminal. While the conception of Low-
line may look dreary, solar arrays will channel natural light down from the surface.
And in New York, where real estate is exceedingly expensive and new public space
hard to get, all sorts of exotic opportunities are explored. Just like old buildings, under-
ground spaces have both drawbacks and advantages. On the negative side one could