An online competition spurred by his proposal has launched a fierce debate among architects and border communities. What do local communities think? — The New Republic
Architect, urbanist, and professor Teddy Cruz, who has been working on both sides of the San Diego-Tijuana border for 25 years, presented the competition as a moment in which architects cannot remain neutral. Sometimes, he said, architects must decide when not to build, since “the politics of neutrality has rendered architecture a pure decoration of very unjust policies.”
He added, “Instead of building walls that are dividing communities and dividing environments, we should be looking at border regions as laboratories for rethinking citizenship, for rethinking resilience, for producing new strategies of interdependence and cooperation and co-existence.” This framework is central to his own practice, in which he has designed multi-functional housing informed by the creative building strategies, extended family structures, and cultural life of informal settlements in Tijuana and immigrant neighborhoods in San Diego.
Perhaps there is a broader lesson that can be drawn from the controversy over the border wall. “That wall is reproduced everywhere inside of our American cities,” Cruz said. They might not contain physical walls, but America’s cities are defined by “urban policies that divide jurisdictions and communities” and “an urban asymmetry that has perpetuated socio-economic inequality.” Even places far from the border, it seems, could use some more crossings.
Previously: US/Mexico border wall competition provokes controversy
11 Comments
I wonder how many votes the other Ted Cruz has lost when people googled him and came upon the writings of this Teddy Cruz. LOL.
Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer, byatches!
Scary
He killed his first victim at -2 years old.
See, why would you want to elect a time traveller?
damn canadians
So does that mean archdaily fell for the bait? You can't be "neutral."
The line between trolling and bigotry has become too difficult to see
"See, why would you want to elect a time traveler"
So that he can bring us all back to when america was great...duh...much simpler times when blacks worked for free and women couldn't vote and stuff.
build it they WILL come
If building a border wall between US and Mexico help the migration routes to the next country of choice, based on free will; then what will be of the airline and ships which host illegal immigration at both sides?
The Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean shall have Navy's buoyancy for immigration control as much as the skies from major Airport towers.
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