Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the role of ornamental ironwork as an instrument of spatial mediation between growing fears of violence and the desire to conserve the porch and other traditional spaces and their uses within the Puerto Rican home during the twentieth century.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores three functions of ornamental ironwork found in modern Puerto Rican homes; security, creation of beauty, and the preservation of customary uses of space. Ornamental iron railings were installed as screens that covered home porches and open roofed carports (marquesinas) between the 1960's and 1980's as a response to increased violence. As a result, residents were able to conserve traditional uses of the liminal spaces between the interior and exterior of the buildings with highly ornate railings. Building technology changed rapidly during the twentieth century through ambitious modernization projects that sought to replace wood and thatch dwellings with more durable concrete structures modeled on the International Style. Houses from all economic levels would adopt these new forms. The ornate ironwork introduced in the latter half of the twentieth century had not been part of the previous vernacular or modernist vocabulary. Ironworks limited physical interactions yet allowed for air, light, and sound to pass. This created a semi-open space that allowed for relaxation and entertainment, a function traditionally associated with the front yard made up of padded earth known as the batey. Aesthetic considerations were taken into account in the railing designs and patterns were often adapted to elegantly fit specific buildings. Long a staple of the Puerto Rican urban landscape, concrete buildings covered in ornamental ironwork became a rarer sight in the late 1990's as dwellings abandoned the open porch and carport and became hermetically closed, once again changing people's relationship with domestic space.