Massena Land Port of Entry
When security officials in the United States can’t stomach a bunch of big letters spelling “United States”, then that’s a good reason to be depressed about the state of the world today.

I saw this story in the New York Times a couple of days ago. It’s a fascinating story about a newly completed, and very interesting border crossing station, where type was used on the facade in a bold and big way, to spell out the name of the country you’re about to enter. The building was supposed to balance the security needs of a border crossing with a playfu,l open architectural image that reflected the American spirt (rather than an American Fortress mentality). The font chosen is probably called Interstate, which is based on the font used on US road signage, effectively making the building a nice, big sign.

But no. Security experts are now removing the big yellow letters from the facade, effectively destroying its design concept, because having the words “United States” on the facade in such a bold fashion would pose a security risk! The building will become too much of an obvious “target”.. What the heck?

You’d think that the building in question is an American embassy in Iraq or Pakistan. No. Its on the US-Canadian border.

This is a joke. But not a funny one. If I were the architect of that building I’d be totally depressed.

Check out some of the photos of this great building below..

Read the NYTimes story here.
Check out more photos of the building by its architects Smith-Miller & Hawkinson

Massena Land Port of Entry
Massena Land Port of Entry
Massena Land Port of Entry


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2 responses to “American security cannot handle some big letters!”

  1. MommaBean Avatar
    MommaBean

    You know, those Canadians are a very dangerous lot. Got to keep our eyes on them (Ha!). I agree I like the building design and it will be a shame to pull down the lettering. It has a nice 1930s kind of feel to it…

  2. Craig Avatar
    Craig

    Title of the article says it all:

    “At a Border Crossing, Security Trumps Openness”

    That’s a completely true statement. Borders are not supposed to be open. Borders are supposed to be secure.