As part of the institution’s renewed focus on pressing social issues through its selection of public programming, the National Building Museum has announced a major new exhibition looking into the part design professionals can play in a topic not too far removed from America’s visual imagination.

Opening on Saturday, November 6th, The Wall/El Muro: What is a Border Wall? is a coeval exhibition that quite literally reflects on the crossover between the built environment and mass immigration. 

Billed as a “timely examination of the role of design, architecture, planning, and engineering in today’s border issues and challenges,” users enter a soundscape environment set along the border in Otay Mesa, California. A section of fence taken from Calexico offers visitors a full-scale confrontation with the physical legacy of the United States’ border militarization added to by scattered artifacts left behind by migrants in the Sonoran desert. A 2019 installation by Rael San Fratello Architects partner Virginia San Fratello helps to further provoke a connection with cross-border seesaws that united communities in a moving transnational renouncement of then-President Donald Trump.

“Borders are invented, imaginary places,” its curator Sarah Leavitt said in a statement. After the previous administration’s $11 billion border wall was announced, AIA chapters in four states issued a joint statement in opposition to the wastefulness and injustices of the proposal. NBM president Aileen Fuchs says she hopes the exhibition “will inspire curiosity and understanding of the built environment and its impact on our lives and communities.”

“This is what museums should be for — leading this type of conversation,” Leavitt offered. 

The Wall/El Muro will be on view at the museum’s D.C. main floor gallery for a full calendar year. A suite of interactive programming will be offered adjacent to the exhibition, beginning with a discussion series in November. More information, including tickets to the discussion sessions, can be found here.