21).Īn especially valuable contribution of the book is its discussion of the reproduction of racial, gendered, and economic hierarchies in proposed fallout shelters: "In an imagination of urban disaster and suburban survival, the fear of the bomb and the fear of the racial other merged at ground zero," Monteyne writes (p. Radioactivity served "as a design driver," fostering developments in mechanical systems, surveillance, and tectonics (p. Government-sponsored competitions for schools, shopping centers, and libraries were intended to address shelter deficits in non-urban areas. Archival research and careful gleaning of contemporary journals and newspapers provide shelter examples ranging from the ludicrous-a wooden structure to appease the lumber industry-to the iconic: Boston City Hall. Monteyne concentrates on the decade after 1962. Monteyne notes that "the partnership between architecture and civil defense produced a discourse about shelter and national security that both guided professional practice and laid a framework for interpreting the cultural meanings of public buildings" (p. The "bunker architecture" that emerged out of postwar modernism is similarly linked to "fortress urbanism," a planning response to more recent uprisings and terrorist acts. Monteyne links "preparation," a goal of federal agencies in the 1950s, to the message of today's Department of Homeland Security, in which being prepared for disaster is equated with responsible citizenship. "Cold War civil defense," Monteyne argues, "was a discursive formation and spatial practice particularly well suited to representing the goals and powers of the welfare state," thus connecting civil defense then and now (p. Focusing on institutional aspects of designing for civil defense, Monteyne's study examines hypothetical and built construction in the contexts of architectural ambitions, federal and municipal politics, and technological (mis)understandings in the 1950s through the 1970s. David Monteyne's fascinating book, Fallout Shelter, extends the recent and growing literature on cold war structures in the United States.
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