Tunnels are primarily functional spaces: they provide an
efficient thoroughfare from A to B. In addition, tunnels are
usually subterranean and thus are also associated with security.
So, underpasses provide citizens with a safe escape from road
traffic; other types of tunnel offer security for authorities –
governments, the military, etc. Sometimes, tunnels provide
routes for clandestine activities that try to circumvent above-
ground control, such as the underground routes in and out of
Gaza that open up its otherwise closed world. Yet, it’s always
difficult to control access to tunnels and they invariably end
up being both utilitarian throughfares and illicit hideouts. In
this dual identity they take on symbolic power, much of it
borrowed from older associations between the underground and
hell. This example from Oxford demonstrates the sense of the
return of the symbolic into the utilitarian. This tunnel was
built underneath the city’s courthouse, linking it with the
nearby prison. Constructed in 1841 with