2019 | Book | Unpublished | Co-Author | Collaborators: Zachariah DeGiulio and Wendy Wu

Much of the literature on American bunkers and consumer culture has examined the bunker as a result of the fears of the Cold War among the general American populace. But what happens when the anxieties of covert enemies and the end of American democracy becomes just another old war story in post-9/11, post-Trump America, whereby the monster under the bed is no longer specific and tangible, but rather is characterized by diffused threats such as climate change that permate our everyday existence?

Hole Earth Catalog assembles a kit of parts to understand this shift in consumer culture, by analyzing the plans of contemporary mass-produced bunkers. The authors argue that these plans show the impossibility of these bunkers’ use for shelter beyond a few days, revealing the ways in which the preparation for the catastrophe supersedes the catastrophe itself for those who commission the design and construction of these underground shelters. By also tracing the history of bunkers during the Cold War, the authors display how while previously the state provided the images through which the possibilities of catastrophe were rendered, today, those images are produced through forums, blogs, and advertisements that create open-source architectural communities.