Duarte Soares Lema*
(1999)

The place chosen for the installation of the Museum of Modern Strategy is a block in the extreme south-west of the former industrial area of Matosinhos. This regular stretch of land was crossed by the Circunvalação de Leixões railway line, with the marks of the former line still being visible on its south side. This is the only delimiting feature on this side, as the adjacent land is a formless wasteland extending as far as the Estrada da Circunvalacao and Praça Cidade do Salvador, which are the borders of the Matosinhos administrative district. The three remaining sides of the polygon are clearly defined by Rua de Sousa Aroso (North), Rua de D. João I (East) and Rua de Brito Cunha (West) forming 90º angles. The last two, which begin in the Avenida da República, are dead ends, abruptly finishing at the marks left by the former railway line. In this rigorously right-angled industrial zone, the block has particular characteristics: its various borders and there being no signs of any occupation.

The building is in the extreme north of the area, occupying the surface of the two corners that clearly define the block. This occupation sets the limits of a territory and is the basis of the need to fortify. Borders are created and, consequently, interior and exterior space for a determined domain. The extreme South has no clear border, with its limits being hypothetically established by the firing range of the positions set up in the extreme North.
The implantation of any static defence depends on the determination of the topographically relevant point in the defining borderline. In this case, a dialectic relation is set up between the form of land, implantation and the definition of the territory.

The adopted fortification typology is based on the Salpa Line bunkers, which stretch from the Gulf of Finland to the North Sea, on the border between the former Soviet Union and Finland. This 1200 km fortified line was built during 1940 and 1941 to consolidate the border determined by the Winter War between the two countries. It is made up of 728 reinforced concrete bunkers, as well as diverse supporting structures, trenches and various obstacles; the majority being built along 350 Km of the Karelia Strait.

The Salpa Line is distinguished from the congenerous European variety not only by length and the reduced human resources with which it was built but essentially by the typology adopted. It is not made up of forbidding buildings stamped on the landscape like Todt’s Atlantic Wall or the Maginot Line, but by small bunkers hidden in the folds of the terrain where their walls are set. From the outside, they have none of the expressionistic drama of other bunkers, nor are they heirs to a national architectural image, like those projected under Speer, or the Futurist Italian architects. The Salpa Line bunkers are clearly modern structures, legitimised by extreme necessity and great constructive rationality.
The traditional trilithic form is abandoned in favour of a continuous structure of reinforced concrete, so as to withstand ballistic attack. They are not representative buildings which also intended for propaganda at home.
They served as strategic support for an army low on manpower, forced to adopt guerrilla tactics.

This typology is based on the strategic principle of not coming face to face with the enemy, but from the side, after the enemy has entered our territory.
The front is hidden in the terrain, extending into a "wing", which is the name of this type of bunker, its firing posts being placed laterally.
The existence of a borderline is only perceptible after its transposition and never before. There is no intention of presenting a forbidding image, but being effective through surprise.
The wing mentioned above, is the identifying part of this type of static defence. The extension of the façade, gives continuity to the support of the land which hides the building, protecting the principal firing post. The discovery of this simple supporting wall radically altered existing defensive strategies. Moving from constructions largely hidden in the landscape and generally designed to fire from frontal positions, bunkers now were completely hidden in the terrain, choosing to fire on the enemy from the side. There are various examples of converted pre- Winter War bunkers, which were modernised by the addition of a wing and partial burying.

The remaining typological features defined the interior space.
The entrance antechamber is an autonomous space, isolated from the rest of the building, so as to create a vacuum space in case of a gas attack. The firing post is the only permanent opening. This compartment is occupied by one man only and has a small niche that serves as a last shelter. The divisions that have firing posts are watertight. The doors that give access to them cannot be aligned with the posts. Instead, there are walls resistant to close range shots placed in the alignment. This envisages these positions being captured from the outside, and thus safeguards the centre of the edifice as far as possible, where the command and communications post would be located.

Through their typology the constructions blend with the terrain.
In spite of the insertion of a strange body, alien to any spirit of place, points of maximum dissimulation are sought. As has been mentioned, the two corners of the extreme north are occupied at the surface, simulating the traces of the ground floor of any factory installation.
As a result of the weight of the construction itself, the land where the building is set is slightly lower, being at the same level as the threshold of the bunker. After this point, the land rises until it reaches its original level beside the remains of the railway line.
The topographical alterations caused are not intended to design any particular landscape. They are only the result of the imposition of a building on a place.

The acceptance of the strategic fact that mobility is a necessary condition for survival in an antagonistic environment has been affirmed on various occasions as an integral part of the conceptual nature of the MOMS or, as T. E .Lawrence said, "it is necessary to attack there, where the enemy is not". This acknowledgement leads to the paradox of the construction of a static defence resulting in a titanic effort, of strategy and dissimulation.
With insane logic, the bunker is where the enemy is not.


*Born in Oporto in 1968.
B.A. in Architecture from Escola Superior Artistica do Porto, ESAP, in 1994.
M.A in Large Scale Architecture from Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya, UPC, in 1996.
Participated in Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Art Project at the 6th Viennese Seminar on Architecture, in 1995.
Tutor for the international seminar on architecture and planning - PUBLICITY, A Voyage Through Future Public Spaces, in Kassel, em 1997.
Course for Specialisation in Urban Management, at the Centro de Estudos e Formação Autárquica, Coimbra, in 2000.
Works in the Department of Urban Management for the Municipal Council of Amarante.
Current member of the Association virose, a organization , particularly interested in reflection on the implications of technological magma on artistic practice.

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