Politics and Architecture of Border Crossings

Abstract

Globetrotters around the world—at least the ones who decide to do their globetrotting on land—know that they can get a pretty accurate first impression of the country they are about to enter by examining the spatial organization, architecture, and appearance of a border crossing. Willingly or not, the architecture of those places depicts in crude, bare essence the cultural and political climate of the state they belong to, its global geopolitical position, and bilateral relations with the neighboring states with which they share a border. For example, the border between Belgium, where I live, and the Netherlands, where I work, is in some places marked by a white line on floor tiles that runs through coffee shops, houses and, I assume, bedrooms (fig. 1). Two different types of light bulbs (shining in different colors) used in Berlin during the Cold War division reveal where the border-wall between East and West Germany used to be. Border lines that separate Brazil and Bolivia demonstrate cultural discrepancies, such as opposite stances toward deforestation and the preservation of nature. If architecture of a border zone can be described as “frontières plastiques: an equilibrium between social forces,” as suggested by Jacques Ancel,1 then this is best visible in the formal and spatial appearance of a border crossing. [...]