A biographical account of the physical barrier that divides the United States of America from the United Mexican States. This is a journey along a wall that cuts through a "third nation"- the Divided States of America.
“A fascinating book, astonishing and magical: a realm where the absurdity of a wall is transformed from obstructive and negative to an affirmation of shared humanity.”—Judith Torrea, journalist and author based in Ciudad Juárez, México
"Timely and provocative, Borderwall as Architecture is an eloquent appeal to reconsider the principles and prejudices of nationalism within the context of the built environment."—Jonathon Keats, experimental philosopher and author of You Belong to the Universe: Buckminster Fuller and the Future
“No longer sovereign limits of exchange, borders are at once indexes of national as well as individual identities. Borderwall as Architecture interrogates how the the securitization of the United States' southernmost limits radically define new landscapes of transaction that can also be visualized as a tool of violence. Among Ronald Rael's elegant ironies seen across anticipatory yet moving drawings and projects, the Mexico-US border fence/wall registers a figurative logic in which seemingly banal aspects of porosity, transparency, and locality also confront architecture's and our own roles in two nations' un-becoming.”—Sean Anderson, Curator, Architecture and Design, MOMA
"Rael sees endless opportunities for creative defiance as he exposes the wall’s xenophobic horror stories, absurdities and ironies by imagining design as both an undermining and reparative measure... [his proposals] force us to re-examine the feasibility of constructing “a big beautiful wall” around fortress America by underscoring that borders are innate zones of connectivity as much as division."
