В центре внимания конкурса – стена, которую предлагает возвести Дональд Трамп, кандидат в президенты США, на американо-мексиканской границе, чтобы остановить поток нелегальных мигрантов. Участникам состязания предлагается ответить на вопросы: осуществима ли эта идея; эффективной ли будет такая мера; может ли такой барьер иметь архитектурную ценность; чем можно заменить мрачные и бесполезные «перегородки». Организаторы не ставят фантазии конкурсантов никаких ограничений, идеи можно предлагать самые разнообразные.
пресс-релиз:
Donald Trump can make no claim to originality for his proposal to build a wall at the U.S. border with Mexico. The idea of erecting a barrier to keep out foreign invasions of all kinds—military, economic, cultural—is as old as the Great Wall of China. That wall’s effectiveness is still debated among scholars, with some attesting to its role in slowing incursions of raiding nomads and others claiming its only success was in underlying the xenophobia that gave it rise. It is not difficult to draw obvious parallels with the passions being inflamed during the current presidential campaign.
Let us be clear: We take no position on this issue. We remain politically neutral. Rather, we are interested in considering the question from a wealth of perspectives. Is it a feasible idea? Can it ever accomplish its purported goals? Can a barrier have architectural merit? If the answers to these questions is no, then what other alternatives can be proposed? Should the existing barriers be torn down? If so, what might replace them?
Meanwhile, the state of the current barrier—a confusion of fencing, corrugated metal sheets, concrete slabs, surveillance cameras, drones and other structures and devices (not to mention 21,000-plus border agents)—is dismal, inefficient and inelegant in a way that respects neither side of the debate. Can the field of architecture create a better solution? We think so. That is the goal of this competition: to apply the discipline's problem-solving and aesthetic capacities to delve beyond the rhetoric and seriously consider the implications of this issue.
международный