The coastal military architecture of World War II in Sardinia

After the Unification of Italy and after the First World War, the Stato Maggiore of the Royal Italian Army had to change the defensive strategies and give more attention to coastal defense, because of the changing political relations and the development of military technology. In this overall strategic framework, the isle of Sardinia was considered an "outpost of Italy", because its defensive and offensive importance in the Mediterranean Sea. During World War II coastal defense became the operational priority of the Italian Army. In Sardinia, that was crucial for its proximity to Corsica and Tunisia and as target of the Allies (af-ter 1943), were introduced substantial defense forces: army corps, brigades, mobile divisions, self-propelled, self-cannons. Therefore, the Army started the construction of strongholds of permanent fortifi-cation, particularly works made of reinforced concrete produced according to standardized modules but adapted to the context with the means, resources and techniques available. Along the Sardinian coast, hundreds bunkers were built and most of them are still existing in a state of ne-glect, sometimes in contexts of particular landscape and environmental quality. This paper presents the systematic study of these "modern ruins built in concrete", through the examination of documents found in historical military archives and through a direct investigation of some of significant works. Also it offers a cataloguing through the categories of different disciplines (history, architecture, engineering, "Art of War" and ballistics) to stimulate their valorisation and conservation, as architectural expression of a particular pe-riod of the history of the twentieth century.