Modern Architectures of North America

Building Materials

Built rapidly in 1942, the barracks were made of tarpaper and cheap pine wood derived from “designs based on military barracks, making them ill suited for family living” (Oregon State Archives Exhibit). The average barrack contained “six one-room apartments ranging in size from 15 by 20 feet to 24 by 20 feet” (Ibid). The barracks had very little privacy, one detainee remembering that because of the wood used “the knots would fall so [they] could see in the neighbor's room” as well as hear them (Ibid). The disturbing conditions of the barracks did not end at the material and noise, but they were also absent of any “plumbing or cooking facilities” (Ibid). In the summer, the barracks were blistering, and in the winter frigid. In each barrack block there was “one bath, laundry and toilet building” which was “shared by upwards of 250 people" (Oregon State Archive Exhibit). In order to make the conditions livable, detainees had to improve the conditions themselves, and through making their mark upon the architecture, succeeded in establishing their existence as a human, normal, and american one.

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