Geoff Manaugh at BLDGBLOG has been exploring the bizarre world of Swiss self-destructing infrastructure, documented in
La Place de la Concorde Suisse,
John McPhee's "rich, journalistic study of the Swiss Army's role in
Swiss society." It turns out that the Swiss Army specifies that bridges,
hillsides, and tunnels need to be designed so that they can be remotely
destroyed in the event of societal collapse, pan-European war, or
invasion. Meanwhile, underground parking garages (and some tunnels) are
designed to be sealed off as airtight nuclear bunkers.
To interrupt the utility of bridges, tunnels, highways, railroads,
Switzerland has established three thousand points of demolition. That is
the number officially printed. It has been suggested to me that to
approximate a true figure a reader ought to multiply by two. Where a
highway bridge crosses a railroad, a segment of the bridge is programmed
to drop on the railroad. Primacord fuses are built into the bridge.
Hidden artillery is in place on either side, set to prevent the enemy
from clearing or repairing the damage...
There are also hollow mountains! Booby-trapped cliff-faces!
Near the German border of Switzerland, every railroad and highway tunnel
has been prepared to pinch shut explosively. Nearby mountains have been
made so porous that whole divisions can fit inside them. There are
weapons and soldiers under barns. There are cannons inside pretty
houses. Where Swiss highways happen to run on narrow ground between the
edges of lakes and to the bottoms of cliffs, man-made rockslides are
ready to slide...
The impending self-demolition of the country is "routinely practiced,"
McPhee writes. "Often, in such assignments, the civilian engineer who
created the bridge will, in his capacity as a military officer, be given
the task of planning its destruction."
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