Germany's ferocious Atlantic Wall on the French coast has been transformed by nature and art.To commemorate the 60th anniversary of D-Day, two exhibitions of lanthe Ruthven's moving photographs of Germany's Atlantic Wall The Atlantikwall (English: Atlantic wall) was an extensive system of coastal fortifications built by the German Third Reich in 1942 until 1944 during World War II along the western coast of Europe to defend against an anticipated Anglo-American led Allied invasion of the on the French coast have been organized at the Utah Beach Utah Beach was the codename for one of the Allied landing beaches during the D-Day invasion of Normandy, as part of Operation Overlord on 6 June, 1944. Utah was added to the invasion plan toward the end of the planning stages, when more landing craft became available. Museum (until 31 July) and the National Theatre, London (until 17 July). After the War, the pitiless fortresses (which so inspired Le Corbusier's beton-brut) were impossible to destroy economically, and though some have fallen down the eroded e·rode v. e·rod·ed, e·rod·ing, e·rodes v.tr. 1. To wear (something) away by or as if by abrasion: Waves eroded the shore. 2. To eat into; corrode. cliffs they once commanded, most remain as barns and byres. Now, the slave-built massive concrete bastions have softened and decayed under the influence of time, weather and vegetation. What were once violent intrusions into a gentle landscape are gradually being reclaimed by nature--and by local youth, who use the surfaces as backdrops for giant graffiti: sudden wild intrusions of a free society into the immemorial IMMEMORIAL. That which commences beyond the time of memory. Vide Memory, time of. landscape of woods, hedges and fields. Tyranny and violence created the Atlantic Wall, but Ruthven's powerful images show rebirth re·birth n. 1. A second or new birth; reincarnation. 2. A renaissance; a revival: a rebirth of classicism in architecture. and redemption through nature and art. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] |
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