Bunker tedeschi della Seconda guerra mondiale. Esiti e prospettive per la conservazione delle superfici in calcestruzzo armato

The outbreak of the Second World War and the awareness of the destructive power reached by the armaments drove the engineers of the German army to test, as never before, the potentialities of reinforced concrete for the construction of more and more resistant permanent fortifications. Bunkers, as main linchpins of this complex defensive system, were carefully codified in the form according to ballistic reasons, but they were equally codified in their material and constructive features. At the end of the war several were deliberately destroyed, others were occasionally reused, some of them were simply abandoned and forgot, while few of them has recently captured the attentions of local associations of volunteers. Thanks to the analysis of Italian and French experiences, the paper aims at reflecting upon the conservation of the concrete surfaces typical of this German engineering works. In the awareness of how superficial treatments can influence the interpretation of the object and its relationship with the landscape, the purpose is therefore to verify the outcomes of the solutions adopted, to investigate the consequences of the valorisation strategies at the expenses of the preservation of signs, as well as to indentify critical issues and good practices.