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Ruination, Remaking, Return: A Conversation on Re‐built Environments

Ruination, Remaking, Return: A Conversation on Re‐built Environments City & Society Forum City & Society Forum: “Ruination, Remaking, Return: A Conversation on Re-Built Environments” Alix Johnson Queen’s University Introduction On a windswept peninsula in Southern Iceland, an American naval base is being re-made. First, barracks were tentatively re-branded as apartment buildings. Then, the fast food restaurants built to serve American soldiers found new Icelandic owners, and management, and menus. But soon, weirder and more wildly imaginative transformations took hold amidst the ruins of the former base: a holding company converted the community center into a business incubator; foreign investors reclaimed storage hangars as data centers. And in one of the eerier transformations, a local woman repurposed an arsenal – weapons drops still visible – into a ballet school. First built during the Second World War as a landing station between the U.S. and European front, then expanded over the course of the Cold War, the U.S. Naval Station Keflavík (NASKEF) was long considered a bastion in the North Atlantic, a pivotal hinge extending American empire. But when the Pentagon’s threat map shifted, it decommissioned the base in Iceland, leaving behind a plateau full of facilities. These leftovers posed an open question to NASKEF’s neighbors, former employees, and http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png City & Society Wiley

Ruination, Remaking, Return: A Conversation on Re‐built Environments

City & Society , Volume 30 (3) – Dec 1, 2018

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Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
© 2018 by the American Anthropological Association
ISSN
0893-0465
eISSN
1548-744X
DOI
10.1111/ciso.12188
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

City & Society Forum City & Society Forum: “Ruination, Remaking, Return: A Conversation on Re-Built Environments” Alix Johnson Queen’s University Introduction On a windswept peninsula in Southern Iceland, an American naval base is being re-made. First, barracks were tentatively re-branded as apartment buildings. Then, the fast food restaurants built to serve American soldiers found new Icelandic owners, and management, and menus. But soon, weirder and more wildly imaginative transformations took hold amidst the ruins of the former base: a holding company converted the community center into a business incubator; foreign investors reclaimed storage hangars as data centers. And in one of the eerier transformations, a local woman repurposed an arsenal – weapons drops still visible – into a ballet school. First built during the Second World War as a landing station between the U.S. and European front, then expanded over the course of the Cold War, the U.S. Naval Station Keflavík (NASKEF) was long considered a bastion in the North Atlantic, a pivotal hinge extending American empire. But when the Pentagon’s threat map shifted, it decommissioned the base in Iceland, leaving behind a plateau full of facilities. These leftovers posed an open question to NASKEF’s neighbors, former employees, and

Journal

City & SocietyWiley

Published: Dec 1, 2018

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