can't put my hands on it, but there was a critical article in metropolis a few years ago (even before 9.11) about a fortress-like higrise (embassy?) by gwathmey siegel which expanded into a question about security vs. openness.

you should be able to find a good number of articles on this discussion in the period following the ok city bombing and the embassy bombings in africa. also, articles on the development of the design which replaced the ok city federal bldg, which were very heavily concerned with security/openness.

and, more recently, critiques of the post-nypd-involvement design of the freedom tower.

i'll dig around. i collected some of this stuff once.

In 'New York 1960' (by Robert A.M. Stern, Thomas Mellins and David Fishman) there's
a chapter on the topic of shelter for the people of NYC in case of a disaster. Not sure if
that's any help for your thesis, but perhaps it's worth checking out. I have only skimmed
it but it seems to (among other things) cover alot of the paranoid fears following the army
bomber hitting theempire state building in 1945 and other events that led to the planning
of huge shelters (for about 4m people) in the late 50's.

thanks a lot steven..
i am going to check that out...

i really appreciate your help..