ABSTRACT
In this chapter I explore the relationship between the technological history and the cultural history of the underground, using subterranean design as the binding theme. The basis of my exploration is scholarly work that blends technical considerations with philosophical, aesthetic, and cultural perspectives on life below ground. My contribution is a response to the current call for a more diverse investigation of the underground and especially the encouragement to look deeper into the history of subterranean design (Perrault 2016, 7–9). The empirical material is gathered from the portfolio of the Norwegian engineering company Fortification AS, who built a series of combined sports halls and bomb shelters during the Cold War. The main case in question is Holmlia Sports Hall and Swimming Pool in Oslo (Figure 8.1) – colloquially known as Holmlia Pool (Holmlia bad) – a subterranean building heavily informed by the security parameters of the nuclear race. I approach this ‘architecture of fear’ (Ellin 1996) in light of Paul Virilio’s theories about the wider societal impacts of the Cold War (1994; 2006; 2012). In voicing a profound worry about total planetary destruction, Virilio opens up a discussion on environmental issues, the survival of mankind and nature itself, which must sustain the threat of technology in order to survive. This comes with a double-edged meaning, since one type of technology can be the antidote to another, such as the heavily technologized subterranean bomb shelter I am analysing in this text. There is also a pragmatic aspect to consider, linked to the energy performance and spatial capacity of subterranean complexes. Even such practical matters are steeped in myth, I argue, by relating the Fortification AS legacy to the ecotopian realism of the Italian architect Paolo Soleri, who is closely associated with the term arcology (Soleri 1969). Soleri propagated a design practice that could lessen the impact of human habitation on any given eco-system, preparing the ground for a self-sustainable design. This mixture of floating utopianism and urgent realism is not just typical for Soleri’s output, as Larry Busbea sees it, but a cue to ‘acknowledge that the post-war design logos was in fact a mythos of man-environment interaction’ (Busbea 2013, 791). This view supports one of my main arguments, namely that the mythological dimension of subterranean facilities – cultural narratives of both doom and salvation – must be considered alongside the technical dimension, as previously outlined by Rosalind Williams (2008). Busbea’s and Williams’s line of argument, especially the idea of a convergence of myth and reality, is the backbone of my analytical approach.
