Still in conversation with walls

So I've been talking to walls again. Let's day just listening as that makes me less eccentric. As I walked with friends around the Grammes-Brown house last week, I became more aware of the "language" of a house. Put it this way, houses express with some conviction how we feel or should feel about a lot of things, perhaps because they are one of our most serious investments. Think about the modern approach to open architecture in a house. From front door to back patio we are redesigning our homes into a mall like stroll passed various functions. By creating such an open design, we are making a house more accessible, more open, less divided into separate private chambers. The family is always more exposed to each other, and guests have the run of our hospitality. Victorian homes were sanctuaries separate from the outside. Front porches were not invitations to come inside but alternatives to entry. And our houses were filled with private chambers for different family members with closed doors to wall off different functions and purposes. Panel doors both closed and opened. We were left alone and not distracted. Set rooms were for dinner and family gatherings and for sewing and writing and intimate conversations. Windows overlooked the garden, a quiet place, a secret retreat. The back yard space was not entered by a patio, offering all manner of "activities," i.e. firepits and hot tubs. Life was, particularly for our immigrant forbearers, a going out and a coming back. The outside world was initially a foreign territory, a place where work could be found and risk taken, and fortunes made. It was a threatening environment, where one needed to keep a step ahead or fall behind, and always maintain a presence (an outward appearance of confidence and cheer). Home was a welcomed return to one's own space, a dedicated retreat, a sanctuary, where one could be "oneself" (speak one's own language, eat one's own food, denounce one's own enemies). There was a lot of dissembling in the 19th century. We dressed and acted formally in the outside world. Here was our testing ground. And here were our failures as well as our successes. The house was an attainment. It represented our achievements, our hold on land and place, an outward sign and inner assurance of our arrival as an accepted member of the community. Solid and somewhat like a defended castle. It represented how far we had come in the struggles of life, how near to a satisfactory finish. And always a refuge. Are the changes we have made in our modern approach to residence a gain or a loss? Or both. The 20th century was a bridge from the 19th to the 21st. Having crossed that bridge in what many would call a frantic rush, are we now able and willing to ask such questions. We search for meaning. Do we find it today in our homes, as I believe we did in the past? Do we still value our privacy as we did in the past? How comfortable are we in our own selves? As a person? Alone? Are chosen and certain places where we can be alone for reading, contemplation, private activities still important? What place do they still play in our lives? Should they? John Bing is Emeritus Professor of Political Science at Heidelberg University and writes a by-weekly newsletter at johnb0c.substack.com