23rd of March 1942: “Command Organization of the Coasts.”

Everything started after the end of Dunquerke battle, when France signed the “stop of fighting” with the German Army (Wehrmacht). The “second front “ was definitely open. In this context The Atlantic Wall born and grew up rapidly, covering more than 5000 thousand kms of coasts. An extensive system of coastal fortifications built by the Third Reich during World War II, between 1940 and 1944. The project consisted of fortifications and naval army batteries along the coasts of all western front (from Norway to North of Spain), in order to defend the German territories from possible Allied landings.  The final result was the creation of probably one of the biggest architecture project of the 20Th century, obtained especially thanks to the forced work of innocent and sleeved people, victims of an history’s nightmare. These structures were so effective that today still hundreds of kilometers of these fortifications and defenses are standing on. Every architectural vision and landscape during this trip spent to shot at this project inevitably faced me with an inescapable doubt: On one side the admiration for  such a wide architectural project, so impressive that its presence is still touchable even today; on the other side a sense of fear, sadness and  mostly reflection. In the end what now remains is a piece of memory about the biggest crime that the modern Era has ever seen; something that should never be forgotten.