Bruce Schneier has a thought-provoking essay up about the nature of architecture and security, inspired by the gradual removal of the concrete "anti-bombing" bollards that were arrayed around buildings after 9/11. Schneier points out that whether or not the barricades are good security, they are at least removable security that can be taken away as the threat (or our understanding of it) changes. He contrasts this with "security" measures that are permanently integrated into architecture — both technological and physical — which we have to live with forever, even if it no longer protects us from any threat.
When Syracuse University built a new campus in the mid-1970s, the student protests of the late 1960s were fresh on everybody's mind. So the architects designed a college without the open greens of traditional college campuses. It's now 30 years later, but Syracuse University is stuck defending itself against an obsolete threat.
Similarly, hotel entries in Montreal were elevated above street level in the 1970s, in response to security worries about Quebecois separatists. Today the threat is gone, but those older hotels continue to be maddeningly difficult to navigate…
It's dangerously shortsighted to make architectural decisions based on the threat of the moment without regard to the long-term consequences of those decisions.
Concrete building barriers are an exception: They're removable. They started appearing in Washington, D.C., in 1983, after the truck bombing of the Marines barracks in Beirut. After 9/11, they were a sort of bizarre status symbol: They proved your building was important enough to deserve protection. In New York City alone, more than 50 buildings were protected in this fashion.
