The Architecture of Our Times

As many of you know, I do a fair amount of running/jogging in our Nation's capital. In the last few years, there's been a whole lot of construction. Much of it has been related to "revitalization" and gentrification. But much of it has been 9-11 inspired.

If you haven't been here in awhile, I think you'd be surprised that the national government seems particularly concerned about truck bombs. Most public buildings now are surrounded by "Jersey barriers," those ugly concrete walls you know from interstate construction, or enormous planter boxes, which serve the same purpose (with a slightly improved aesthetic effect. Drives, parking garages, and even some streets are blocked by these rising barriers that have to be lowered by a guard before a car can enter; much more serious than just a gate. The buildings are Capitol Hill are now being surrounded by truck-bomb proof posts, which are designed to fool one into thinking that they have a purpose other than stopping rental trucks full of explosives . . . .

I've been thinking about this on recent jogs--these things are literally one of the dominant architectural features of the time. I know that there was a truck bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City, back in 1995. But the real impetus for much of this was 9-11.

It's clear from the outset that . . . none of these barricades would have stopped a jet from crashing into any of these buildings. So I guess the argument is that these barricades would prevent truck bomb attacks, were these attacks to be attempted. But is there reason to think that al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups will attempt such attacks? It's always hard to balance aesthetic values--these things are typically very ugly--with security concerns. But it seems to me that we haven't got the right balance yet. I think that we've greatly overestimated our security concerns, and made our fair city much uglier, as a result.