Cold War Modern: Defense

It is common to say that the effects of the cold war were primarily indirect rather than on the immediate environment or the constructed environment, as the results of the cold war is becoming increasingly visible today as more physical heritage sites are being uncovered.
In Tom Vanderbilt's book Survival City: Adventures Amongst the Ruins of the Atomic America, 2002 his terminology of 'black and white spaces' applied to these sites and areas effected by the cold war help to create a better idea of how both public and private sectors coexisted. Black areas are the secret bases, bunkers, storage facilities, silos and test sites, white were the visitable and visible places/areas open to view, Vanderbilt then says that "the existence of one not only presupposes the other, but they inevitably seep into each other, corrupting both in the process." this means that no matter what 'visible' sites appear to hold innocence to the public would undoubtedly have connections to the secret, subside of the cold war, as if the 'visible' world of progress was a sign of unstoppable capitalism and a denial to nuclear threat. 


"Psychological effect of the invisible of the anxiety of annihilation in the midst of plenty"


Continuing on with Vanderbilt's terminology, we hit a grey area. (HA) Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA was a place that had a small population and was rife with vast areas of woodland, yet almost overnight in 1942, thanks to all the new construction technologies and resources the 'Atomic City' was constructed. It was kept a secret until the war ended as it played a huge part in the Manhattan Project, as well as being heralded as "the biggest job in quick town building ever attempted in the USA"
Oak Ridge was also home to NORAD, North American Aerospace Defense Command is a United States and Canada bi-national (1954 agreement) organization charged with the missions of aerospace warning and aerospace control for North America. Aerospace warning includes the monitoring of man-made objects in space, and the detection, validation, and warning of attack against North America whether by aircraft, missiles, or space vehicles, through mutual support arrangements with other commands.

Menwith Hill, Harrogate, UK

Along with NORAD, there was a military demand for an intricate system that allowed members of the US military to communicate and defend against enemy threats. This came about in the form of the positioning of Distant Early Warning Radomes, invented by Buckminster Fuller whose idea of using the newly discovered fibreglass material which could withstand great amounts of weather without causing so much as a scratch to the Radomes.
DEW for short, the line of defense created was a significant initiative of the cold war, the elctronic grid controlled by SAGE (which later contributed to air traffic control and had its roots in a lot of Tesla's inventions and proposals which were turned down by the government not only 20 years ago) was used to relay information all over the continent and soonafter, the domes were modified to create semi-autonomous sites so as to relieve staff to other duties.
The radome became a symbol of cold war corporate and militant America, contributing to the theory that America are out for full spectrum dominance over the planet, as seen when they propagated them as symbols of liberating technological progress in the war.


"The peculiar mixture of do-it-yourself improv and recycling of scrap materials with up-to-date structural systems and advanced electronics (hi-fis, Tv and film) was typical of hedonistic survivalism of the counter-culture of the second half of the 60s"


Mcluhans global village