quiz: why is the Pentagon in the shape of a pentagon?

[calimac]

1. Because it would be silly to call a building "The Pentagon" if it wasn't shaped like a pentagon.
   
2. To signify the five branches of the military: Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard.
   
3. To evoke the shape of 15th-century fortifications.
   
4. To confuse any potential assailants, like the ones on 9/11, as to which face of the building to attack.
   
5. To best fit in the space they decided to build it in.
   
6. To fit in the space they were originally going to build it in, but they moved the site and decided to leave it as a pentagon because it looked cool.
   

Comments

[conuly]

7. As my mother would say, so that people with nothing to say would have something to talk about

[sturgeonslawyer]

#8 To contain the demon who has been unwillingly serving the US Military since the 1940s.

See the first few seconds of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRgVXPaEdJs

[armiphlage]

I read that it also had a shorter walk path between offices than a square, but I doubt they had the computer modeling back then to actually optimize walk paths like that.

[ckd]

Number 2 would require them to predict the 1947-2019 period in which there were five branches (but not the 2019 creation of the United States Space Force) when designing the building in 1941. Neat trick, and if they'd had that level of knowledge of the future maybe they should have done something about Pearl Harbor.

(And yes, I know that the real answer is #6 though I suspect there's a bit of #3 in the mix.)

[calimac]

re #2, I know that, but I was hoping it would sound no less plausible than the others.