The Fountainhead: Part 1: Chapter 11 Summary & Analysis

Peter Keating comes to visit Roark at his new office. After congratulating him, Keating says the office is “Not quite as imposing as it should be, perhaps, but what can one expect at the beginning?” Ever since Keating has heard the news about Roark, he has felt pained and humiliated. Keating tells Roark that he can now join the A.G.A., since he is an architect, but Roark says he “won’t join anything […] at any time.” Keating says he will make enemies of the A.G.A. if he refuses their invitation, but Roark says he will make enemies of them anyway.

The first person Roark told about his new commission was Henry Cameron. Cameron was happy to hear the news even though his manner was gruff and dismissive. Right before Roark left, he told him to bring photographs of his new office the next time he visited. Roark does, and when he sees them, Cameron says that Roark will face something “so vast and so dark,” the source of all the pain on the earth. He does not know what exactly this is but knows that Roark will have to eventually face it. Cameron says that if Roark succeeds in his fight against it, he will vindicate all who have suffered.

When Roark goes to check on the construction of the house, he finds Mike the electrician working there. Though Mike doesn’t usually work on small projects like houses, he has turned up to work here. He expresses his affection for Roark gruffly, with a tight hand shake.

Often, Roark can approach the house like a mathematical problem and give precise instructions. But at other times, his hands shake as he touches its frame and walls. The workers notice that Roark loves the house. While they like him, the contractor’s superintendents do not. Most contractors did not want to take the job because it was too challenging, and Roark finally settled on a firm that really needed the work. The foremen predict the house won’t stand, and they seem to be looking forward to it collapsing.

Roark has bought an old Ford to visit the construction site often, resisting the temptation to work with his hands and build like he used to. Mike tells him “it’s indecent to be so happy.” While standing on the cliff, Roark observes some young people who are off on a picnic together in their car, laughing and singing songs, and he thinks they had worked for a goal, which was this release. He finds himself to be very different from them.

Austen Heller is a little astonished as he observes his house being constructed. He finds he often can’t tell Roark apart from the house. He believes he has found a friend in Roark, a friendship based on Roark’s “fundamental indifference.” While Heller knows that he isn’t important to Roark, he feels great pleasure when Roark smiles at him or compliments his work, because these are neither “bribe nor alms.”

Roark describes Heller’s house as a house “made by its own needs.” While other buildings are built to impress—built for an audience—the determining motive in Heller’s house “is in the house.” Heller thanks Roark for his consideration while drawing up the plan (he has given Heller’s study the dominant spot, away from the living room and guest rooms), but Roark says he hasn’t thought of Heller at all, and that he has only “thought of the house.”

The house is completed in November 1926. It is ignored by all the publications that celebrate notable new constructions, and is mocked in the club rooms of the A.G.A. by architects like Ralston Holcombe and Guy Francon, who call it a “modernistic stunt” and a “disgrace to the country.” People who drive by the house stop, stare, and giggle at it. Gas station attendants laugh when Heller drives by, and even his cook is mocked when she goes to buy groceries. Keating is pleased when others say that Roark has no talent, and Toohey ignores the house completely.