Koos Bosma, Schuilstad: Bescherming van de bevolking tegen luchtaanvallen, Uitgeverij Sun, Amsterdam 2006.
Schuilstad: Bescherming van de bevolking tegen luchtaanvallen (Shelter City: Protecting Citizens Against Air Raids).
Koos Bosma takes a critical look at the Netherlands contemporary ’security’ policies that have emerged out of the ‘Air Protection’ regimes developed directly before and during WW II.
The archaic notion of ‘luchtbescherming’ (air protection) stands for a specific technological development and organisational measures to protect civilians from enemy bombs.
This book surveys both the civilian protection shelters and the occupying forces: the bunker. During the second World War state commissioner Seyss-Inquart ordered an entire shelter city to be built on the Clingendael estate near the Hague. Shelter City offers both an architectural-historical look at the hidden underground as well as an overview of the ajoined structure such as disaster plans, food storage and wartime pantries and civilian instructions.
The present day Dutch government incessantly warns its citizens of potential terrorist attacks. But Bosma questions the outmoded approach and asks how should we deal with the heritage of the sheltered city in a radically changed urban context of biopolitical control, miliatrization and globalisation.