RECYCLING MILITARY ARCHITECTURE - MAKING SUSTAINABLE FUTURE OR COVERING THE PAST

Project description

Issues of recycling of available resources are no longer only in the focus of environmental protection, but are part of all sustainable strategies, so thinking about the future we are increasingly talking about recycling built space facilities and areas. In continuous attempts to revive environments and structures that are no longer active, the issue of attitudes towards military properties is vague around the world. Numerous examples from Western Europe persistently confirm that the conversion of military architecture is just as successful as the conversion of abandoned industrial, agricultural and other heritage, and that creativity enables a quality and comfortable life even in bunkers and other fortification structures. However, the question arises whether feasibility and financial profitability is a sufficient motive for that, especially given the sociological and psychological moment that accompanies these facilities, because they are recognized in the negative context of war events that the population reluctantly remembers. In addition, there are not many examples in the world and they are mostly a consequence of individual initiatives, and not the result of systematized national strategies. Is the reuse of military architecture a sustainable solution and the next step in the processes of regeneration of the brownfield areas? Do individual examples of the conversion of these buildings represent a necessary need to make use of existing resources or are they a reflection of rebellion and the promotion of freedom at the turn of the two centuries when peace, freedom of opinion and democracy are the foundations of modern society? Is living in buildings from which people's lives were endangered just an extreme experimentation in architecture or an apparent concealment of the past, or by converting into educational and cultural institutions, are we actually preserving the military part in the right way?