AIArchitect

Like our dirty wall designer, I'm also a Rensselaer alumnus (1969). RPI may be the catalyst for such things as the dirty wall. I heard stories of a design professor who assigned his students a concentration camp. He said refusal to design it would mean an F not just for the project but for the entire course. He had the Dean's cooperation. When studewnts came to complain to the Dean, he simply said "I don't interfere with my faculty on matters of architectural education." Later the professor told the students he just wanted to teach them a lesson: that someday they may have Satan himself walk into their office and offer them a design commission. And even if the office was starving, it was time to say NO. Firing a client before having him hire you: another form of weaponizing architecture.

Todd Cowle Municipal Bond Credit Report synthesizes, analyzes and presents aggregate credit information and trends in the municipal bond market. The report includes municipal bond rating information from the three major rating agencies – Moody’s Investor Services, Standard and Poor’s and Fitch Ratings.

Benjamin--

Really amazing post. I would like have my students read it as part of the part of my seminar on Nationalism.

Hope that's OK.

Did "Ken" actually say that he is favor of executing people crossing between these territories, because their movement is in violation of work permit and immigration statutes??

That would be a lot dead bodies.

But it's opened my eyes. I know am in favor of capital punishment for anyone, American or not, in violation of any citizenship statute. Tax lien? shoot em in the head!
Expired drivers license? break their kneecaps!

I am in favor of protecting the sovereignty of our laws by any means necessary

Some thoughts on why designing/undesigning the border interface is such an important topic for architects and social theorists....

The agency of the partition is the critical question for architectural politics today, so it’s not surprising that speculative design would continue to find raw material in sites the partition is elevated to global metaphor. The ironic project itself is fine. My comments are more to the responses, especially regarding the Lou Dobbs wing of the AIA.

Clearly the partition is elemental to both architectural history and practice, and yes, from Vitruvius to Virilio, we understand how sedentary fortification gestated urban form. We also recognize that partitions do not only segment space, they also sort peoples and thereby are always also political technologies. Further partitions not only contain an irreducible violence, they embody it (Tschumi, Weizman, Involuntary Prisoners of Architecture, etc.) Precisely because the partition sorts it also gathers. As others have happily noted on this thread, the national boundary gathers unlike cultures into a conceptual whole, just as on a much smaller scale a room sorts and gathers people into a shared present.

But the design purpose of partition, to include by exclusion, is never finalized. To design partition (what architects do) is not just to extrude already understood lines in the sand but in fact to redraw those lines for specific intended effect. If we simply constructed buildings around place where people already gathered, we would have to real social purpose. Partitions are made to be drawn, undrawn, and redrawn. This is space.

Which is why the tragicomedy of the Southern California Security Barrier is so bizarre, unnecessary, ugly and stupid, and why architects must work to unbuild it.

Given the real history of this specific region, where for the past several centuries, state and national borders have been continuously drawn and redrawn, and where the demographics of English and Spanish speaking immigrants has also mingled and merged, it is fallacious to describe, as Mr. Shawn does, the construction of a barrier marking the current national boundary in the terms of some primordial boundary between ancient peoples tied organically to their lands. This is not the Strait of Gibraltar. It is an abstract partition with little more historical rootedness than the migrants, tourists, and commodities that pass through it. Historically it is as mobile as they are, and its mobility is a function of the social and economic mobility of the region. To undo that condition with the imposition of something descendent from a prison gate would be exactly “unnatural.”

The reality is that a perhaps new (perhaps very old) condition exists: the Southern/ Baja California region is integrated into itself economically, culturally and linguistically but nevertheless bifurcated politically. Perhaps we can imagine other examples of this?

What does the border do then? Like a very wide but very thin interface, it works to govern conditions of cultural, economic and demographic exchange between these two political territories. It doesn’t just work on behalf of a government, it is governance. To me that is a very interesting design opportunity and challenge, and also why the the prophylactic strategy of the wall must be undone. A border can be many things and do many things. To filtrate and sanitize population flows is not the only assignment.

Which takes me to some of the comments here....The question of immigration is an easily squeezed pimple out of which the pus of xenophobia and ethnic retrenchment does drool. I have no patience with the characterization of the situation in the terms of some paranoid fantasy about competing white and brown manifest destinies. While it’s certain that delusions of conquest and eliminationism are also part of the history of Southern/ Baja California, but they are side spectacles. The moment you cast the most expansive dreams MECHA as the critical source of everyday border perforation, you move out of architecture into conspiracy theory.

I don’t dismiss the importance of ‘imagined community’ to structure regional flow, but the cause of such movement in this region is not primarily the “failed Mexican state” (though it is not in such good shape) but rather (1.) the cultural and economic integration that has historically existed bound the area well before Senor Fox, and (2.) globalization’s acceleration of the flows of people, goods, capital, technology, and information more generally. Why would expect anything but maximum traffic in this location? The issue is that we see a regional condition where millions of people and billions of commodities attempt to flow through against this vast structuring, membrane of the border. That is one of most interesting, volatile design challenges anywhere in the world. There the partition really does govern! I hope I am clear on this point. But to extrude that membrane into a stupid wall is unacceptably bad urban planning.

Mr. Shawn is correct is linking legal mechanisms of racial filtering, such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, to architectural means such as security barriers. Partition includes virtual as well as physical pathways, and it is ultimately not possible to understand the hysteria about extralegal demographic flows without locating them within the deep and an unfortunate history of racial demonization and violence that scars the American experiment. I quote Mr. Shawn, “let us avoid internal weakness" (wow). Let us also realize, in fact, that the true goal of the Alien Hoard is sap the integrity of our precious bodily fluids. Should we also deny them our man-seed, one presumes, Gen. Ripper? Architects of all people should be the last ones advocating the transition of an open society into a vast national gated community.

As Mr. Shawn’s contributions make plain, the site where body-hysteria and foreign affairs come into contact, can’t then be separated from the general Post-911 program of “aggressive defensiveness” (preemptive strikes, enhanced interrogation, safe cities, security membranes along our national orifices, etc.) I would hope that for most readers this is a discredited strategy for a democratic societies moving forward.

Mr./Ms. Dale writes, “So, let’s build it, hope it is temporary, and make it effective, efficient . . . and beautiful. Let’s make it architecture.” I gather than you mean well, but the historical associations of a homeland impenetrable by criminal outsiders, are, to put it mildly, a set of precedents America should very much avoid. The comparison of extralegal demographic flows to armed robbery and home invasion borders on the neurotic. Would you compare the presence of foreign made goods to a viral infection? Would you compare the circulation of foreign capital to an invasive plant species? The narrative equation extralegal outsider=illegal = criminal = dangerous = violent is best left to the gun show crowd. It’s not becoming of architecture’s profession.

Leaving aside the homeland and the decoration of its policing for the moment, the situation does confuse traditional understandings of space and contiguity. The legal status of capital, data, information in a world of massively interconnected, radically decentralized networks is a hugely complicated and hugely important design problem. The same is true for the legal status of human persons. You download music and movies illegally, I assume? I do. Here’s the connection: both file sharing and extralegal demographic flow are Crimes of Network. The reality of networked integration marches on, but laws stagnate. Both imply less the criminality of the act but the dangerous anachronism of the laws they transgress. The world is flat not just for toys from factories, but for factory workers too. It is bad economic policy to plan the flow of capital asymmetrical to the flow of labor.

Maybe the best example of the design policy challenges involved are represented by the fragile national data policies to be accommodated by Google’s planned offshore data centers. In a single location, floating in the extra-national space of the open ocean, Google will house many petabytes of their users data. Such data may originate in many different countries each with many different policies regarding privacy, security and state access. Data may originate in the Korea, may use German software, may be housed in a datacenter in Siberia and be owned by the Chinese. What does the USA do when it wants access to prosecute a potential crime? Or when the Chinese want access to harass a political dissident? What if any jurisdiction counts?

Two possible scenarios to consider: (1.) Google literally partitions data not according to any intrinsic database architecture, but according to the legal fictions of national data privacy policy imported from terra firma, and/or (2.) the transnationality of data networks, access and integration comes to constitute a jurisdiction of its own that in practice supersedes the terrestrial sovereignty of States, whether they (or we) like it or not. Google takes the long term political implications of this very seriously and they should. Back to the wall, isn’t it unacceptable that we would plan the future to accommodate greater innovations in sovereignty for abstract information than we would for sovereign human beings?

In the face of the complex reality of a globalizing landscape in which borders don’t disappear but proliferate, mutate and reformulate quickly, the wall is precisely an irredentist maneuver (a nationalist claim on an international interface.)

It’s not a matter of open vs. closed. Architecture never is. We need more serious work and imagination. Architecture as a system for the replication and tracing primordial categories is retrograde. The job of architecture is to draw the new models of political and spatial configuration necessary to govern the big and little worlds we share.

Pick up some books. Irit Rogoff, Terra Infirma; Rosa Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects; Ulrich Beck, Risk Society; Saskia Sassen, Territory, Authority, Rights; and take a look at the work done in, on, around the border region by my colleague, Teddy Cruz.

In the name of a hostile and self-destructive nationalism, both in its arrogance and its incompleteness, the wall is an accidental monument to the Bush episode. So then, who will be the Berliners, tearing down the wall? Americans? Mexicans? Architects? For the benefit of America, and according to the professional responsibilities of architecture in a free society, the wall should be removed. It’s destruction, however, should itself be a beautiful act of design. Suggestions?

Benjamin H. Bratton
SCI_Arc and UC San Diego.

Good enough. I appologize for the conclusion that you might think that, while having chosen words to also allow other meanings.

Architecture or more generally, Design for the use of real people, is not inherently political, unless flavored so after the genius innovation and invention is otherwise complete.

Irredentism? you nailed that! old concept but new word for me, however you are quite astute in choosing it.

Your humor and the ability to cloak it in prose is also well chosen.

Back to the central issue.
this wall concept teaches us in is current form, and that is very good.

We need more metaphors like the toxic wall, and your stealthy dialog, to teach what limits not to build between us.

Thank you Shawn
John Mathis

"would your ancestry not make you the source of the very problem you decry in their indigenous names?"

Do you think I concur with the sentiment contained in the quotation about european terrorists and stolen property?

instead of 'favorite part' perhaps I should have written 'most absurd part.'

Irredentism, I think, will gather momentum in the future. With that in mind I offered the references.

Good call Shawn. If by telling us you prefer this part or that of MECHA dogma, and by doing so are saying you support the goals of Aztlan indians in their quest of ethnic cleansing of all European infidels and restore the Southwest as their "original" homeland, then ask your self on the way down to turn YOURSELF in to MECHA, isn't Shawn an Irish name most often? If this act is your intent, would your ancestry not make you the source of the very problem you decry in their indigenous names, MECHA or not?

Again look up the definition of bigot. You skipped that point entirely. Put yourself in the shoes of others for a brief moment, and open your mind.

My family has "originated" from TEJAS for 10 generations but include Swiss, Irish, Scotish, Spanish, Canary Island, and Welsh immigrant ancestors, and many more. They built Texas as you know it. They built Mexico as you know it, not the Aztlan indians.

Have you wondered with an open mind for a minute how many ggg ggg ggg grand fathers and mothers every human has? Do the math; we all have the same count. They can not all be from the same tribe or land.

Who do you really suggest WE ALL must turn ourselves in to as we perpetually blame our ancestral selves on behalf of whom, Mexicans or Aztlanians? You never say who you support or why. Mecha wont say either.

In your opinion are Mexicans the dis-enfranchised beneficiary or Aztlan Indians?

You have made my point more clearly than I have. The President of Mexico made his "immigration plan" very clear (see prev posting). Perhaps this wall is truly right for you; not for me. When illegal immigrants enter Mexico from the South they are shot on the spot. Is that proper SHAWN?

Con Cuidado Senor Shawn with the European name.

John Mathis

oops "reccomend" -5 points for incorrect spelling, hehe

After the 'Plan of San Diego,' I reccomend reading 'El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán.' then see how many campus chapters of the group MECHA you can find at universities in this country.
After that I reccomend reading 'Nuevo Plan de Aztlan' (www.blazingstar.org/NuevoPlandeAztlan.html). Here is my favorite part:

"The offspring of the European terrorists who originally stole our ancestral lands are guilty of receiving this stolen property. Receiving stolen property is no less a crime than stealing it. These aliens remain in denial as they continue to exploit, oppress and otherwise deprive us of our ancestral lands and freedoms from generation-to-generation much like their terrorist ancestors did against our ancestors for the past few centuries."

Put your pencils down and turn yourselves in.

Perhaps both liberals and conservatives can learn from this life event I can share.

Architects Designers and would be Politians alike, you make up your own minds.

During a civic event where a now retired "Highly placed" American Official who had lived in Mexico city as part of the USA diplomatic corps was seated next to me. He is a very personable and self made man. As part of our discussion over dinner, I had the occaision to hear an all defining declaration of the President of Mexico repeated by this man who served the USA there for 14+ years, constantly at risk of death.

The dinner table topic of discussion to the Mexican President became, "Why arent you doing more to keep your people employed gainfully inside your own country and beyond that, to also keep them from over-running the Southern States where their numbers are outstripping all public and civic resources while creating their "anchor babies"?

As the next sumptious course was served to them, the President of Mexico replied over dinner "Those people are cockroaches. Why would I want to stop them"?

Now...Who among us here agrees with the legally elected President of Mexico? I cannot.

The question of immigration can not be about Architecture until structures define culture.

At present Culture defines Architecture, NO?

I was QUITE shocked to hear his most highly developed immigration concept, particularly in these intentionally offensive terms, from the highest Mexican authority. Though I have lived in this remnant of "New Spain" for most of 55 years and heard a lot of divisive talk over the years, no one was ever quite that direct or that crude, El Presidente or not.

If you want to better understand the cultural stresses of the southern border of this part of New Spain, then Google the "Plan of San Diego" and open your mind.

Moreover if the metaphoric toxic wall were actually built, who would build it, and as a result die first?
Who makes the bricks?
Mr. Architect?
The President of Mexico?

Having made both extremes angry now, consider this for political balance. Please remember, or look up for the first time the definition of a bigot; one who has an open mouth and a closed mind.

You will find both liberals, conservatives, even the Anti Defamation League in that camp.

While I cannot support the trashing of the US or anchor babies, and favor the landmine/sniper metaphor to a toxic wall metaphor(either would play hell with the Javelina/Deer population),
most important I also find that as bigots we can neither create nor sustain architecture for very long. What Owner wants to remain unheard in a room of only talkers?

Finance is for you that do support bigotry; as our self appointed elites You might excell at Usery but never Design.

In closing I hope you are at once laughing and thinking, not marching in lock step over a cultural cliff.

John Mathis

Mr. Sperry, this gets very tiresome dealing with the obvious, but here it goes: Where would you like to put the fellow that kidnaps, rapes and kills a young girl? I would presume that for you the death penalty is out of the question. What shall we, as a just society, do with the person? Clearly, a prison is a bit better choice than the house on your street. But you, and those at ADPSI (not a typo), would rather not participate in the responsibilities of government and civilized culture. You would leave the work to others, in order to adopt a faux moral stance, which is immoral in its consequences. Is it fair to leave neighborhoods and cities subject to the criminals you would leave on the streets?

Yes, of course, prisons are not the only aspect of deterrence, but the boycott you speak of demonstrates the unseriousness of the group in dealing with matters of importance. A more mature approach it needed.

This is architecture designed to make a statement but not to be constructed. There is causation to such artistic expression that gives form to this abstraction.

The underlying reality is an invasion of this nation by illegal immigrants. No invasion of this nation can be tolerated without an effective response. Illegal immigration damages the United States as a nation state.

The question this design it is asking, since it is horrific, ugly and can not be built, is what design response is actually appropriate? Should our design response be passive?

In my view the perfect solution is an invisible wall that inflicts no pain or damage or environmental impact but would prevent unauthorized migration. The fence would employ forces that could detect unauthorized persons, it would automatically be hardened against them and preclude effective passage because it simply would not tolerate illegal migration.

The underlying problem is systemically embedded tolerance, remove that and you will not need a wall.

TLW

The following is an excerpt of an article from Smithsonian.com:

"From its origins under the first emperor in the third century B.C., the Great Wall has never been a single barrier, as early Western accounts claimed. Rather, it was an overlapping maze of ramparts and towers that was unified only during frenzied Ming dynasty construction, beginning in the late 1300s. As a defense system, the wall ultimately failed, not because of intrinsic design flaws but because of the internal weaknesses—corruption, cowardice, infighting—of various imperial regimes. For three centuries after the Ming dynasty collapsed, Chinese intellectuals tended to view the wall as a colossal waste of lives and resources that testified less to the nation's strength than to a crippling sense of insecurity. In the 1960s, Mao Zedong's Red Guards carried this disdain to revolutionary excess, destroying sections of an ancient monument perceived as a feudal relic."

www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/great-wall.html

According to the Smithsonian, the wall ultimately failed not because of any intrinsic deficieny but, rather, because of internal weakness.

The great wall, however, was not an analog that I put forward to justify the efficacy of the use an architectural element; the defensive wall along the southern US border.

Let us look to the southern border for an actual application.

Let us look at the construction of the triple fence barrier in the San Diego Sector. From FY1996 to FY 2002 apprehensions dropped from 480, 000 to 100,000. Additionally, the border patrol stations at Chula Vista and Imperial Beach realized a decline from 321, 560 in FY 1993 to 19, 035 in FY 2004 - a 94% reduction. The enforcement consisted of the construction of the barrier, increased coverage by underground sensors, an increased vehicle fleet and increased manpower to execute the existing laws of the United States.

Let us extend this approach along the border in its entirety and test the results.
Let us avoid internal weakness.

How about a passive-agressive wall? At 20 mile intervals in a impenetrable wall, establish obstacle courses for prospective immigrants. In addition to proving their physical fitness on various apparatus, the applicants would be subjected to a maze while displaying their resourcefulness in reading hints to the correct route printed in English. If they don't reach the end in a designated time, a conveyor will return them to the starting point, where showers, food and a sheltered rest area would be available at no charge. The whole facility could be brightly lit, with salsa music and video monitors. Its cost would be paid for by the popularity of the reality show the spectacle provides for millions of American TV viewers.

Some of us support Mr. Miller's political point of view, other readers appear not to. I happen to be in agreement, and I wanted to invite him to join Architects / Designers / Planners for Social Responsibility (www.adpsr.org). It's an organization that works to get architects involved in just these kinds of discussions. Kristi - you might want to be a member as well. There is strength in numbers. Anyone know how to contact Henry Louis Miller?

For those of you in disagreement, I am sure you will find ADPSR's "Prison Design Boycott" campaign -- intended to have architects pledge not to design prisons and jails -- even more infuriating. www.adpsr.org/prisons

But Kristi, the wall to protect Israel HAS worked, amazingly well. That is what has exasperated so many on the left. The murder of innocent Israelis has dropped dramatically as the wall was has developed. (And in truth, the majority of it is just a fence.)

Shawn is correct to note how Zach’s description of architecture as an effort to create shelter and protect people within it is a proper analog to our own efforts to maintain our sovereignty on our southern border. While a wall is not the entire solution, it is a part of the answer, just like locking the door of your home or car is part of the answer to preventing theft or attack. You do that, right? Both the Israeli fence and our own planned along the border with Mexico are defensive reactions to a failed state. México’s failed socialist government is the direct cause of the northern migration. At this point, I don’t see anyone clamoring for a UN-led coalition for regime change for the benefit of the distressed Palestinians and the Mexicans, but one could argue that until that change happens, the walls are part of the protection that embattled Americans and Israelis deserve. Let’s do what we can in other ways to help that day come about.

So, let’s build it, hope it is temporary, and make it effective, efficient . . . and beautiful. Let’s make it architecture.

Exactly, their wall didn't work.

Though we can hardly compare illegal immigrants to the Mongol Army under Genghis Khan, I think you'll agree with me when I say that any wall we build on the border isn't going to be as large or armed as the Great Wall. However, as your point illustrates, the defensive wall is a poor solution to illegal immigration, and invading hordes of Mongolians…

My original point was that defensive walls have always been part of architecture. I think that the satirically proffered toxicwall is just an absurd variation of the defensive wall.

As a matter of function, some walls work and some walls do not work. If you need a wall, build one. If the wall you have is inadequate, build a better wall. If no wall ever worked, why has man built them from time immemorial until today?

Now you will have to excuse me for my lack of in–depth knowledge about the physical reality of the great wall at the time it was overrun by the Mongols. But here is one account of the event:

In 1225 AD Genghis Khan the infamous arrived with his Mongol Armies at the gates of this Great Wall. On his way to conquest of East and Central Asia and the founding of the Mongol Empire, the Great Khan was temporarily halted in his advance by the Great Wall of China. The leading Chinese General of Jin Dynasty China which held rule over North China at the time, had the central Badaling Gate solidly closed with poured Iron to stop the Gate from opening before the Giant Mongol Army. A stale-mate at the Badaling Wall ensued. The Mongols failed to breech the Wall for Months, until Genghis Khan conceived a plan. Outflanking Fortress JuYongGuan with his horsemen, the mongols penetrated the Great Wall in a nearby area where it had fallen into ruin and disuse. Not expecting an attack from the rear, the defenses of Fortress JuYongGuan were overrun and the Mongols cleared the Gates of The Great Wall. Riding down from Badaling the huge Mongol army overwhelmed the Chinese Capital of Dadu (currently Beijing), raising it to the ground in 1237 AD. Dadu would be rebuilt as Khanbalik, the City of Khans, while the Mongols further established their Rule over the Han Chinese. Although Jin China would be annihilated by 1259 AD, the Song Dynasty in south China would hold out for a longer time. Eventually, the Song lost their Capital in 1273 AD. The Chinese were ruled by Foreigners in their own land. The Mongol Yuan Dynasty was born when Kublai Khan was crowned Emperor in 1279 AD.

So the mongols penetrated the wall where it had fallen into ruin and the
chinese were ruled by foreigners in their own land.

Shawn Emmons:
"I note Zach’s admonition that the cultural politics of immigration aren’t for this blog."

So what exactly does your response have to do with architecture? Architecture depicts the culture that built it. Like art, people will interpret it differently. There are some, like our adamant colleague Mr. Emmons who would say it represented "security" and would be correct. I would personally argue that it would represent bigotry and a break-down of trying to make our legal system work better. That sentiment would also be correct.

Point is, walls don't work. The Great Wall didn't keep out the Mongols, the Wall between the Israelis and the Palestinians hasn't worked. Policy needs to dictate a better solution. Not this.

Re: Politics

We are building a wall.

A few other legislative responses to increased immigration; specific restrictions imposed by the progeny of the founders:

Page Act of 1875
Chinese Exclusion Act 1882
Immigration Act of 1907
Immigration Act of 5 February 1917
Immigration Act of 1921
Immigration Act of 1924

Stop the Invasion.

It is very difficult to keep this discussion away from the politics that have lead to Mr. Miller's architectural commentary.

However, architecture has always been a reflection of the society that creates it. So, in that regard, were this project ever built, it would be a commentary on our values as Americans.

This would be a noticeably and desparately far cry from the Statue of Liberty with her message "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" which expresses the ideals that our nation was founded on. The point is we were all immigrants at some point in our pedigree.

Miller's Swift-ian veiw of our immigration policies and attitudes as a nation acts a poignant and graphic reprimand. It is definitely worthy of attention.

First, I have to say I think Zach’s post is great. Second, I suspect that Miller and I could not be further apart on the question of immigration policy.

But in the spirit of satire I would like to say that I think I could support his design were it not for the reality that the toxicwall would prove far too inefficient. Silly leftist, why not go with land mines and snipers?

I note Zach’s admonition that the cultural politics of immigration aren’t for this blog.

Question: Is constructing a defensive wall an act of weaponizing architecture in the sense that one is taking an architectural element that, historically, had not been a weapon and transforming it into something contrary to its nature?

I would say no.

Question: Is the construction of a defensive wall consistent with Zach’s description of architecture as an effort to create shelter and protect people within it?

I think so.

I, therefore, cannot posit that a weaponized architecture; a defensive wall, in any way reverses centuries-old assumptions about what architecture is or could be. I think in a very fundamental way weaponized architecture has been and self-evidently still is one of the essential qualities of architecture – security.

Point of reference:

Perhaps the oldest defensive wall dates back to about 8000 BC. The Neolithic proto-city of Jericho existed for a thousand years before it built the wall that enclosed it. The construction of that wall marks the transition of that people from a hunter-gatherer mode of existence to a more stable settlement.

Another instance closer to us temporally and in terms of our Anglo cultural heritage is Hadrain’s Wall (122 AD) and the follow-up Antonine Wall (138).

I concur wholly that the ‘real architecture’ of a society consists of factors historical, cultural, political, etc… that circumscribe the built environment.

"The buildings are nothing more than the physical manifestations of that architecture,"
Absolutely.

Actually, I think it's a great idea! Of course, as an architect I agree this would be a violation of our vow to "protect the public". On the other hand, it's still more humane that say, adopting the Mexican government's policy of shooting illegals crossing into their country along their southern border. Personally, I'd like nothing better than to see our government implement that policy along our southern border, but I guess that would be politically incorrect wouldn't it??? Who cares! That idea has been taken beyond it's extreme as evidenced by our government's willingness to turn a blind eye to this invasion going on every day. We need stronger deterents and whether it's a toxic wall (Mr illegal, cross at your own risk!) or a bullet, I'm in favor of protecting our borders by any means.

And this piece is important to AIA members because . . . ?

What's scary is that if this were posted in my local newspaper instead of AIArchitect there would be a huge stream of comments in favor of building it...