The Wall™

Spanning nearly 2,000 miles and over 150 feet tall, the Wall™ between the United States and Mexico has become one of the 21st Century’s largest architectural endeavors. Though it was originally intended as a border to control immigration, the unforeseen and abrupt societal effects upon the North had the Wall™ erupt into a megalopolis bisecting two nations. What was once a region of diversity, it has since become a behemoth physicalization of America’s divorce from its southern neighbor - severing all mutual exchange of culture, goods, labor, and ideas. Isolated in this desert, the Wall™ acted as an oasis, attracting swarms of Americans who came to satisfy their unquenchable desire for lifestyles that once were.

The former residents of Southern California, an area now devoid of multiculturalism and prosperity, emigrated south forming a new utopia that feeds off of its proximity to Mexico. Greater than their desire for diversity, however, is their desperation for any semblance of Mexican food. Cut off from their source of avocados and authentic tacos, the American people began to manufacture their own bastardized Tex-Mex to satisfy their addiction. Commodities that were once taken for granted quickly became items of luxury and financial capital. The Wall™ soon became populated with culturally starved American refugees who then built their own informal city on top of the now defunct border crossing. Today, while much of the Wall™ is occupied with residences and government services, at its core is a factory manufacturing the American simulacrum of a taco. Shipped throughout the continental United States, the American made taco may not satisfy the public’s cravings for spice and flavor, but quells the people through a false sense of diversity.

To fund the Wall™, federal budgetary cuts removed national agencies and organizations from Washington D.C. and instead placed them within the structure. Using the Wall™ as both an architectural and financial shelter, at-risk federal programs were able to prosper and establish the governmental backbone of the utopian walled-city. On the lower levels are the National Parks Service and Environmental Protection Agency, taking advantage of the southern Mexican sun to recreate endangered American ecosystems. These fabricated zones provide a facsimile of nature for the American people to enjoy while simultaneously manufacturing a bounty of year-round fresh produce. Both National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities found sanctuary within the Wall™, encouraging and supporting underfunded artists. The Institute of Museum and Library Services also relocated itself into the Wall™, now obtaining a federal budget that protects and promotes literacy. After the elimination of the Education Department, Federal Work Study, and After School Programs, the top floors of the Wall™ provide education services for the displaced families who have migrated to live within the city. While certain federal departments have managed to blend into the Wall™ through formal construction, other services – such as Medicare and Medicaid – are haphazardly integrated through ad-hoc means even to this day. Precariously clinging on to the skeleton of the structure, Public Broadcasting Service continues to survive.

The Wall™ stands not just as a symbol of America’s reductive response to globalization, but is a tribute to their architectural ingenuity as well. The resulting urban condition is a conglomerate of political prerogatives, domestic needs, and shallow desires that reflect the American public in the 21st century. Through replication and relocation, the purgatorial city tries to satisfy the micro desires of its people while inherently ignoring the larger issues.