Thursday Posting: Fortress-Style Houses

Impenetrable

“Architects and builders say the house of the next decade will reflect end-of-the-century anxieties about privacy and security.”

-June Fletcher, “Home Front,” Wall Street Journal

Lewis, Roger. “The Neo-Fortress Home: Can the Concept Be Defended?”  The Washington

            Post.  5 September 1998, Saturday, Final ed.. 

In Lewis’s article he discusses a recent article in the Wall Street Journal by June Fletcher, who is reporting on current architectural trends, and what’s in and out when it comes to homes.  Fletcher’s article delves into the new wave of architecture that is to come (was to come, since the article was written over 10 years ago), citing an increase in anxiety about security as the propeller for the Neo-Fortress Movement.  Lewis scoffs at the idea that Fletcher would claim specific architectural elements such as “Greek columns” as being outdated, stating that fortress-style houses are only something millionaires could afford.  To clarify, a Neo-Fortress style house is defined by having “towers and turrets; walled yards; locked gates; and tall, narrow windows.”  Lewis has many issues with the Neo-Fortress house, but one of his main problems with the idea is that it is not always practical, nor affordable.  He states: “these design elements and strategies for shaping a house should be employed when they fit the circumstances and context pertaining to the house, its location and site, its occupants and its occupants' budget.”  However, Lewis has an even greater concern than that: he believes that the Neo-Fortress houses show how Americans are increasingly more concerned with segregation and isolation, and that his preoccupation extends to the creation of more gated communities, as well as gated homes.

This article helped solidify my belief that current architecture’s main priority is now security.  While style will always have some importance in the design of buildings, architects are now focusing mainly on terror-proofing, resulting in more fortress-style buildings, both in the corporate and residential worlds.  While this article doesn’t particularly fit into my idea of an abandoned utopia, I think I can get something out of the message that it delivers.  As society progresses, our interest in protection and security increases exponentially, resulting in buildings and homes that seemingly are more cut off from society and the real world, and more interested in living in their own individual bubble.