ABSTRACT
The Cold War shaped the Danish landscape and cityscape profoundly. Numerous bunkers, military and civilian remain today as testimonies of a time where fear of a nuclear Third World War was imminent. This chapter delves into “the bunker” as materiality and myth, drawing inspiration from bunker studies from a broad range of fields including history, geography and architecture. Subsequently, this chapter historicises the Cold War bunker from its origin as vital part of the total defence over obsolete and dormant object in the early post-Cold War period to a new afterlife as re-appropriated and cherished heritage relic. A detailed analysis of contemporary Danish Cold War bunker museums leads to a discussion of the implications of Cold War museums being bunker museums. I argue that that (museum) function follows (bunker) form and that turning Cold War bunkers into Cold War museums that prioritise a war narrative means that memories, identities and meaning-making produced at these sites become inextricably linked to war, pushing aside equally legitimate memories of the Cold War. The concluding section of the essay explores future avenues for bunker musealisation and heritagisation.
