[Image: The old submarine listening station, Isle of Lewis, via the BBC]. This is the most awesomely surreal architectural proposal of 2015: an extremely remote Cold War-era submarine surveillance station on the Isle of Lewis in the Scottish Outer Hebrides might soon be transformed into a kind of benthic concert hall for listening to whale song.
"A community buy-out could see a former Cold War surveillance station turned into a place where tourists can listen to the sound of whales singing," the BBC reports.
During the Cold War, we read, "the site was part of NATO's early warning system against Soviet submarines and aircraft, but the Ministry of Defence has no further use for the derelict buildings on the clifftop site." "It is now hoped a hydrophone could be placed in the sea to pick up the sound of whales." The idea of "derelict buildings on [a] clifftop site" resonating with the artificially amplified sounds of distant whales is amazing, like some fantasy acoustic variation on the "Dolphin Embassy" by Ant Farm.
[Image: "Dolphin Embassy" by Ant Farm].
I couldn't find any further word on whether or not this plan is actually moving forward, but, if not, we should totally Kickstart this thing?and, if not there, then perhaps reusing the old abandoned bunkers of the Marin Headlands.
Your own private whale song bunker, reverberating with the inhuman chorus of the deep sea.
(Story originally spotted via Subte...