Borderwall as Architecture

Borderwall as Architecture is an artistic and intellectual hand grenade of a book, and a timely re-examination of what the 650 miles of physical barrier that divides the United States of America from the United Mexican States is, and could be. It is both a protest against the wall and a projection about its future. Through a series of propositions suggesting that the nearly seven hundred miles of wall is an opportunity for economic and social development along the border that encourages its conceptual and physical dismantling, the book takes readers on a journey along a wall that cuts through a “third nation” — the Divided States of America. On the way the transformative effects of the wall on people, animals, and the natural and built landscape are exposed and interrogated through the story of people who, on both sides of the border, transform the wall, challenging its existence in remarkably creative ways. Coupled with these real-life accounts are counterproposals for the wall, created by Rael’s studio, that reimagine, hyperbolize, or question the wall and its construction, cost, performance, and meaning. Rael proposes that despite the intended use of the wall, which is to keep people out and away, the wall is instead an attractor, engaging both sides in a common dialogue. Included is a collection of reflections on the wall and its consequences by leading experts Michael Dear (author of Why Walls Won’t Work), Norma Iglesias-Prieto (Professor of Chican@ Studies at San Diego State University), Marcello Di Cintio (Author of Walls: Travels Along the Barricades), and Teddy Cruz (Professor and Co-director, UCSD-Blum Cross-Border Initiative, University of California, San Diego). Drawings and models from the book are now included in the permanent collections at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Teeter totter wall

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TED Talk

An architect's subversive reimagining of the US-Mexico border wall

As the San Francisco Chronicle writes, "[Ronald Rael's] imagination is audacious. He speculates on the implications of a border wall, building with mud and using 3D printers to create buildings -- as seen in his books Borderwall as Architecture, Earth Architecture and Printing Architecture, with his partner, architect and educator Virginia San Fratello.

Recuerdos

Recuerdos (Souvenirs) is a journey documenting a series of scenarios, real and imagined, along the U.S.-Mexico Border Wall. It is a story that must be told, for it is an account of the largest construction project in 21st century Usonia. Almost exactly the distance of the Grand Tour, the migratory route for upper-class European men that went from London to Rome, this journey stretches along the southern border for 1,931 miles. This Nuevo Grand Tour traces the consequences of a security infrastructure that stands both conceptually and physically perpendicular to human migration. Whereas the artifacts Grand Tourists would return with (art, books, pictures, sculpture) became symbols of wealth and freedom, the border wall is a preventative measure against Grand Tourists from the south.

Project Date: 2012
Project Team: Ronald Rael, Virginia San Fratello, Aine Coughlan, Kent Wilson, Bridget Basham, Brian Grieb, Nicholas Karklins, Emily Licht, Plamena Milusheva, Colleen Paz, Molly Reichert
Project Info: Recuerdos was awarded Honorable Mention in the Pamphlet Architecture 33/34 invited competition. The work was exhibited in TRAZANDO LA LINEA Opening Reception: Friday, May 4, 2012 (7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.) Location: Centro Estatal de las Artes, Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico.