Last week I read an article in Wort.lu about an Agricultural Engineer, working for a European Institution in Luxembourg, who ended up in a bureaucratic legal battle with the Luxembourgish environmental agency. His crime? Building a garden fence that was apparently 15 cm too high.
This, naturally, escalated into a Kleinkrieg.
And it got me thinking: when did fences become so… emotional?
The answer, as with most quietly insane design legacies, lies in the Neolithic period. Roughly 12,000 years ago, humans began trading their nomadic lifestyles for fields, crops, livestock - and, with them, the need to mark space.
To say: This wheat is mine.
These goats are mine.
This mud hut with the broken roof - also mine.
The fence, then, was never just a barrier. It was the first architectural assertion of possession. A primitive line in the soil that said: I was here. You stay there.
Fast forward twelve millennia and we’ve perfected the art of fencing people out and signaling just the right amount of hostility while doing it.
There’s the classic picket fence, whispering I’m approachable, but please don’t test it.
The chain-link fence, beloved by schoolyards and post-apocalyptic films alike.
The gabion wall, used by architects who want to feel edgy while hiding behind rocks.
The tall manicured hedge, perfect for people who want to say I’m not rude, just deeply private.
Each fence is a design choice, but also a psychological one.
Are you protecting something? Hiding something? Trying to look expensive, or just… safe?
I, for instance, think about fencing in our very small patch in front of the house. I feel surprisingly territorial about it. It is ridiculously small and yet I feel that intense desire to fence it in and protect it, since the day we moved in. Currently, it is a rather primitive “fence-line” done with very primitive looking rough big stones. It feels rather medieval, in a Stonehenge or Flintstone’s way. It must be changed to something more refined, something more effective. I am determined. Perhaps: Laser-activated garden perimeters or motion-detecting sprinklers?
And don’t get me started on anti-burglar fences with floral detailing, or the tiny 30cm decorative barriers that politely suggest you could step over me, but we both know you shouldn’t.
In cities, fences reveal who trusts their neighbours, and who believes the world is one bad Tuesday away from chaos. In rural areas, they divide property, and occasionally friends, over five-metre stretches of hedgerow with territorial ambitions.
And yet, the design of fences is rarely discussed in architectural circles. They’re seen as too minor. Too functional. Too… petty.
But minor things can carry major meaning.
And sometimes, a fence is all it takes to turn civilisation back into tribe.