Shelter City

Air Raid Protection represented an era: a mode of thought, a political and administrative concept, and a collection of technical and organisational measurements to protect citizens against attacks from the air. This book offers an interpretation of the Dutch, English and German air raid protection systems, and the construction of a Shelter City, parallel to the existing city. The reconstruction of Shelter City, of which some remnants still present themselves as theatrical memories or enjoy a fragmented existence in deeper layers of the earth, could be characterised with a medical metaphor: the historian must scan the urban body in order to imagine Shelter City. This insightful study explores the hidden traces of war, outlining ways of dealing with the physical remnants of air raid protection, which have long been useless but are still part of our landscapes.