Driving down an unfamiliar street, I saw a big new “Kingdom Hall of the Jehovas Witnesses”. A big fancy building with absolutely no windows. Just the main door in and required exit doors. I have noticed this about all “Kingdom Halls” that are built new or remodeled. Why no windows?
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- I don’t know, but I have noticed it also: the few around my area (near St Louis, Mo) have no windows either, so it’s not just a Michigan thing. - DougC
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I myself have asked this very question on the boards many months ago, and pretty much stumped everybody.
A few months later…on an unrelated post…I discovered one of us fellow dopers was a former Witness. Emailing her directly I asked
this odd architectural omission from the house of worship.
From what I gather (forgive me if I haver mis-construed anything)
a Kingdom Hall is built in 3 days, and such time-consuming and irrelevant additions like windows are simply deleted from the plan.
BTW…welcome to the SDMB.
Nothing definitive, but there is an entry for window.
The Kingdom Hall that was built near me took about 6 months to build, so that shoots the 3 days theory out, at least in this case.
ZEtte
Maybe it’s so they won’t be distracted by looking out of the window during services.
Haj
Ummmm every kingdom hall I have been to has windows, the local congregation has atleast 10 that I can think of. In fact in all the states I have been to the kingdom hall in, they have all had windows even the older buildings.
I might add that when we built our kingdom Hall, we picked the design, so maybe they designed their own?(I don’t remember a windowless design, but who knows) Ours isn’t that old, maybe a year, our old building however also had windows 
I’ve never thought about that until now…most of their buildings in my area are rather humble and plain looking.
I’ll check for windows. And maybe knock on their doors for irony’s sake…
A friend who is a Jehovah’s Witness told me about his first communal building experience. He’s an electrical engineer so was in demand for his specialty. They used plans that were adapted from and approved for other Witness halls in our county, so they were somewhat confident that their ‘new’ plans would be approved.
All of the various building inspectors were notified months before the building took place; appointments were set so that the inspectors would arrive as needed for approval. The plans were simple (no windows) and construction was rather basic.
This fellow said that when he arrived for the two-day building frenzy that it looked like “a Chinese firedrill” (sorry, his words, not mine), but that when the moment to begin arrived, that everyone knew exactly what to do and where to locate themselves.
Everything worked as planned and the Hall was constructed and ready for use in 48 hours. One of the inspectors told him that evaluating Witness halls was relatively simple because they were basic, used plans similar to structures that had been built before, and were on a closely kept schedule.
I’ve heard before of them being very rapidly constructed (i.e. just a few days); can anyone fill me in on the reason for this, if there is one.
Confirmed the same in Durham, NC.
I’m guessing it has something to do with the “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” thing from John 2:19.
My local hall has windows. They built a new structure a few years ago. It too has windows. As other have mentioned, simple structures are preferred.