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The Bunker : Metaphor, materiality and management

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 17; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14759551.2011.544894

1477-2760

Luke Bennett,

Nostalgia and Consumer Behavior

Abstract The image of the 'bunker' has a deep resonance in contemporary organisational discourse. This paper seeks to explore the link between this metaphor and the materiality of the bunker as a physical site of organisation. The twentieth‐century origins of the bunker lie within the rise of aerial bombardment. The bunker, as a structure, is a triumph of function over form, yet it somehow also resonates at a symbolic level – either by invocation of the abject circumstances of Hitler's final days in his Berlin bunker or in the celluloid imaginings of the nuclear command bunker during the Cold War. In each case the materiality, the 'concrete' essence, of the bunker weaves in and out of its symbolic existence. This paper also considers the fate of these bunkers and what their ruins leave for us as traces of the essentialist organisational life lived in extremis by those who dwelt within them. Keywords: metaphormaterialityorganisational symbolismbunkernuclear war Notes 1. The motives, methods and meanings of such amateur 'bunkerologists' and their exploration of abandoned bunkers form the focus of a separate study by the author (Bennett forthcoming). 2. All photographs are the author's own and are reproduced with author's permission. 3. Albania is an extreme example of this phenomenon – between 1950 and the death of dictator Enver Hoxa in 1985 an estimated 700,000 pillboxes were emplaced across the country to repel the perceived threat of foreign invasion (Howden 2002 Howden, D. 2002. Albania's relics of paranoid past. BBC News on‐line, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2098705.stm (accessed February 19, 2010) [Google Scholar]). 4. Calder (1991 Calder, A. 1991. The myth of the Blitz, London: Jonathan Cape. [Google Scholar], 42, 60) cites official UK pre‐war predictions of 600,000 air‐raid deaths and an actual death toll of 60,000. By contrast, Calder estimates that up to 50,000 residents of Dresden may have died in the 13–14 February 1945 air raids alone. 5. Albert Speer was Armaments Minister, with responsibility for German factories and infrastructure. At the Nuremberg war trials, he was spared a death sentence because evidence showed that he had opposed Hitler's 'Nero' Decree of 19 March 1945, an order calling for the destruction of Germany's civil infrastructure, and had planned an abortive assassination attempt upon Hitler in the Führerbunker. 6. In ancient Greek and Roman literature a three‐headed hound which guarded the gates of Hades (Hell). 7. Von Stauffenberg led Valkyrie, the unsuccessful 20 July 1944 attempt to assassinate Hitler in the Wolf's Lair bunker. 8. Speer also acknowledges Boullée as an admired influence upon his Nazi architectural style (1975 Speer, A. 1975. Inside the Third Reich, London: Sphere. [Google Scholar], 232). 9. Furthermore Virilio (1989 Virilio, P. 1989. War and cinema: The logistics of perception, London: Verso. [Google Scholar], 64) notes that the production designer of both Star Wars (Lucas 1977 1977. Star wars, Directed by G. Lucas, Los Angeles, CA: 20th Century Fox. [Google Scholar]) and Alien (Scott 1979 1979. Alien. Directed by R. Scott, Los Angeles, CA: 20th Century Fox. [Google Scholar]) was influenced by Adam's Dr. Strangelove control room design. We might therefore speculate that depictions of spaceship interiors in contemporary fiction owe much to attempts to depict Cold War bunkers. 10. In a post‐modern turn an ex‐nuclear bunker in Stockholm is reported to have been refitted as a command centre 'in the style of Ken Adam' as part of its redevelopment as a secure data centre (Judge 2008 Judge, P. 2008. The Swedish data centre with a bunker mentality. zdnet (online IT newsletter), http://news.zdnet.co.uk/hardware/0,1000000091,39571813,00.htm (accessed February 10, 2010) [Google Scholar]). 11. See Curtis (2008 Curtis, R. 2008. Katrina and the waves: Bad organization, natural evil or the state. Culture and Organization, 14(2): 113–33. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]) for a critique of the conventional view that the hurricane was chaotic. Curtis argues that the weather system was in Deleuzo‐Guattarian terms a 'nomad', an alternative organised (non‐human) system. 12. This quote is taken from an interview with an amateur 'bunkerologist' who traces and visits abandoned bunkers as a hobby, see Bennett (forthcoming Bennett, L. Forthcoming. "Bunkerology – A case study in the theory and practice of urban exploration". In Environment and Planning D: Society & Space [Google Scholar]).