Vincenzo Pagliuca Photographs South Tyrol's Wartime Bunkers
Vincenzo Pagliuca photographs South Tyrol’s World War II bunkers as austere structures slowly absorbed by the Alpine landscape.
By Art Vault
September 28, 2026 · 1 min read
All photographs © Vincenzo Pagliuca, shared via Colossal.
Across Italy’s northernmost province, remnants of a wartime defensive system sit beneath Alpine peaks, beside roads, and inside dense woodland. Photographer Vincenzo Pagliuca approaches these structures as portraits in Bunker, a series devoted to the fortifications scattered through South Tyrol.
The region became part of Italy after World War I, despite its strong German-speaking and Austrian cultural ties. Italy’s Fascist government began constructing the bunkers along the northern border during World War II. Work stopped during the conflict, but the military retained control of the completed sites until 1993.
Concrete Becoming Landscape
Pagliuca photographs from a measured distance, allowing each structure’s geometry to emerge gradually from rock, soil, grasses, and trees. Some bunkers still read as blunt military objects. Others have weathered into forms that can be mistaken for caves, retaining walls, or low hills.
The photographs hold two timelines together: the political history that produced the architecture and the slower ecological process now absorbing it. Their quietness makes the sites feel less like monuments than unresolved presences.
Bunker is available from Hartmann Books. More work appears on Pagliuca’s website and Instagram.
All photographs © Vincenzo Pagliuca, shared via Colossal. Source: Colossal.
