Project Description
“I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will make Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.” Donald Trump
Although they are doomed to crumble, humans have always built walls: along borders, across disputed lands, and around cities. Whether it was Hadrian, Qin Shi Huang, or Nikita Khrushchev, leaders often proclaimed the need to fortify their territories. And indeed they did, erecting formidable walls whose remains are largely relegated to the backgrounds of tourist selfies. In Chicago, Dellekamp Arquitectos hoped to reclaim the rhetoric of the wall in its ironic and iconic post-functional state. If anything, our morose political context serves as a point of departure to imagine a future where the border becomes a connection and the wall an invitation.
This model at Chicago Architecture Biennial is all that’s left of The Wallderful – A 21 feet high, 100 yard long inhabitable structure in the middle of Garfield Park. Mexico couldn’t pay for it, the USA wouldn’t pay for it. Let’s hope there will never be enough money for more walls.