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"The threshold, the boundary, the limit all "define": it is the nature of such definition that the object so circumscribed immediately becomes evanescent. The possibility of constructing the history of a formal language comes about only by destroying, step by step, the linearity of that history and its autonomy: there will remain only traces, fluctuating signs, unhealed rifts. […] The boundary line […] is there to mark the points of impact that determine the interaction of signifying practices with power practices endowed with their own specific techniques."

          Manfredo Tafuri: The Sphere and the Labyrinth. Avant-Gardes and Architecture
          from Piranesi to the 1970s
. Cambridge, London, 1990. P. 8.

Until the End of the World

In a seemingly unprecedented critical act, architectural historian and critic Charles Jencks announced in 1976 the "death of modern architecture" by referring to the destruction of the Pruitt-Igoe housing block in St. Louis, designed by architect Minoru Yamasaki (1952-55). [1] Precisely dated on 15 June 1974 at 15:30, the "project of the modern movement" had, according to Jencks at least, come to its definitive end. The promise of social reform and a better future, to be realized through the ideologically driven architectural projects of the Modern Movement, had illustrated its own bankruptcy through the demolishment of a social housing project that had failed to properly accommodate the social classes whose lives it intended to improve. A "better man" had obviously not emerged from the many spatial experiments of the modern movement. On the contrary, since it became clear that the social impact of architectural projects depended on so many other factors, the general insight shared in the mid-1980s was that the influence of architecture on societal developments was either marginal or rather limited.

Pruitt Igoe: aerial view and demolition (1974). Fotos by Renato Saboya. Sources here & here .

Jencks' proclamation of the end has some intriguing predecessors and can be regarded as just one of several interesting, and in fact rather idiosyncratic, historical examples of "endism". [2] Perhaps the most influential idea of "ending" [3] in recent times has been Francis Fukuyama's proclamation of the end of history. [4] With Hegel, Marx and Nietzsche as the three obvious references, Fukuyama treated the fall of the Iron Curtain as historical indicator of the end of communism and as the moment in which "the last man" would celebrate his historical triumph in the endless unfolding of liberal democracy. History ends, according to Fukuyama, not when the revolutionary forces of the proletariat have overcome the power structures of the bourgeoisie but precisely at the moment when the evolutionary process towards social organization reaches its seemingly most perfect state in liberal democracy. What comes out of this "finality" is a form of human government that, however imperfect, functions well and forms the historical end-point of an ideological development that has established, what appears to be, the "best of possible worlds".

One of the more classical referents to an "end" in/of architecture, namely Jane Jacobs's The Death and Live of Great American Cities, [5] is also mentioned by Jencks, but he only refers to this influential book as one of the symbols of the flogging "to death remorselessly for ten years" of the modern movement "by critics" [6] and does not give this "ending" the same prominent position in his argument as Yamasaki's demolished project. Additionally, and even though the notion of beginning is intrinsically related to, yet not necessarily coinciding with an ending, Jencks's objective still was to historically relate the death of modern architecture with the start of the Post-Modern era. In contrast to the precision of modernism's end, however, he left this "beginning" rather open, as he used the plural to discuss "the Beginnings of PM". The paradigm shift towards post-modernism in architecture Jencks analyses could be located "as early as 1939", with Lubetkin's Highpoint II, while the "evolutionary tree" developed by Jencks has "Ronchamp" as the earliest entry. [7] Alongside the provocative critical act of dating the end of modernism to a specific moment, Jencks here seems to accept the contradictory aspect of determining a point of origin, namely the difficulty of properly locating the start of a trajectory of historical development. [8]

History's "return from a vacation"

The claim that the physical destruction of an exemplary architectural structure can literally constitute the starting point for a paradigmatic change in the way architecture is practiced and theorized, let alone how society is politically organized, seems rather absurd. Even in case one accepts the emergence of post-modernism as a paradigm shift, the event itself is most likely part of a larger amalgamation of several developments that have led to this shift. Intriguingly, Jencks attributes a rather tragic role to the architect in his story, which is in stark contrast to the heroism normally associated with modernism. A few decades later, though, Minoru Yamasaki's historical significance became even more tragic when the World Trade Center (1966-73), also a project he had designed, was the target of the 2001 Al Qaida terrorist attacks. If one would interpret this event in line with Jencks' interpretation of the Pruitt-Igoe demolition, this second prominent destruction of a Yamasaki building might have instigated a paradigm shift similar to the one observed between modernism and post-modernism. In other words, by placing importance on the recurrence of the destruction of an architecturally significant structure, the speculative question arises whether the Twin Towers' destruction can be regarded as an historical turning point in architectural discourse. Even if the 9/11 attacks have been described, within the context of Fukuyama's end, as an event through which history had "returned from vacation" [9], replacing the Cold War with the "war on terror", the effects on architecture's discourse remain currently mostly unclear. A "new phase" in architecture seems, for now, not as explicitly present as the "rediscovery of history" [10] was during the first years of post-modernism. Moreover, it would seem that the historical distance, necessary for such an analysis to be made, is still too short.

World Trade Center New York. Fotos by Dave Kliman and Michael Foran. Sources: here & here .

Nevertheless, the emergence of global terrorism has undoubtedly changed the discursive debates in architecture. One of the more obvious influences of the changed societal realities on the architectural discourse has been the renewed interest in the relationship between, or influence of politics and ideology on architecture. On a more theoretical level, Giorgio Agamben's discourse on Homo Sacer and Jacques Rancière's reflections on politics and aesthetics have been most influential within this debate and have also led to an intensified re-reading of the work of Michel Foucault. Within the field of architectural research, investigations into spatial divisions, with an emphasis on borders, have become prominently present on the discursive agenda. Since most contemporary conflicts are not only related to acts of terrorism but involve ethnic conflict or minority resistance as well, the focus within these spatial investigations has been redirected toward the scale of urban space, rather than the continental scale (of the Cold War) or the territorial scale (of the Balkan wars). This changed focus has been accompanied by an increased importance of different forms of small(er)-scale spatial analysis. Furthermore, the interest in borders is, since the subprime crisis of 2007, "extended" with a discussion on the global economic crises, where the emphasis of the border (of the state, of religion and of ideologies) is combined with the discussion of the excesses of the global market, in which obstructions, in whatever form, are potentially lifted as much as possible.

Airport security lines. Fotos by pbyrne and Inha Leex Hale. Sources here and here.

Even if, as stated, Michel Foucault has been the most influential reference in the discussions about the relationship between architecture and politics, his lectures at the Collège de France, which is the part of his Å“uvre that treat the spatial consequences of the "mechanisms of power" clearest, still remain rather overlooked. Especially his 1978 lectures are relevant, also for this discussion on contemporary border conditions, as he distinguished three aspects of power that have a direct affect on spatial properties, namely "sovereignty", "discipline" and "security". The socio-political implementation of power becomes, according to Foucault, operational differently with "sovereignty being exercised within the border of a territory, discipline being exercised on the bodies of individuals, and security being exercised over a whole population". [11] In architectural discourse, unfortunately, the debates on the influence of power structures on space have, at least until recently, remained rather limited and have focused mainly on the direct relationship between either absolute power and the spatial implementation of strategic, political decisions (with Hausmann's plans for Paris and Speer's plans for Berlin as historical and the "civilian occupation" investigation [12] of the West bank as contemporary examples), or democratic decision processes and issues of public space (with Jefferson's plans for Washington and Le Corbusier's plans for Chandigarh as historical and Eisenman's Holocaust Memorial in Berlin as contemporary examples).

Israeli-Palestine seperation wall Abu-Dis and Bethlehem. Fotos by aaronbflickr and [l a u r a]. Sources here & here.

The Border as Boundary Line or Spatial Zone

The emphasis in the political debates of the last decade on "practices of bordering", defined as the "exclusionary consequences of the securing and governing of the 'own' economic welfare and identity" [13] remains, as stated, in apparent opposition to the developments towards a globalized, border-less world. This is an ambivalent condition we nowadays have grown accustomed to since it is not a condition of two opposites, namely between the spatial practices of the local versus the spread, trans-border networks of a global economy. [14] Rather, it has become increasingly understood that every locality is undergoing the effects of both processes and that one can study "the global" on a local scale, as the spatial effects of the processes of globalization can be measured and investigated within the different localities. [15] Nevertheless, when the relationship between architecture and politics is addressed in contemporary spatial investigations, the "border" remains one of the central objects of study and its ambivalent character somewhat limited. In all of these cases, the border is treated mainly as a necessary means of control, as the clear demarcation line of the nation state or as a device that allows for a separation of the "one" from the "other". [16]

European Union North African border to Marocco, Melilla. Fotos by sara prestianni and StephaneMGrueso. Sources: here & here .

The border is, to summarize, understood as a physical, spatial element that creates division; i.e. a distinct form of "limit" that separates natural or cultural entities. Additionally, since power has to be concerned with multiplicities, as Foucault suggested in another context, power will emerge only when a collection of people, whether it is a family, tribe or society, requires to be organized. [17] A multiplicity therefore implies an ability to make distinctions between a variety of features or characteristics, and these distinctions produce a variety of border types. A border, then, presupposes a collection of people, a collective entity that desires or needs to be separated from other collective entities. This insight would make borders elements of collectives rather than individuals, and this aspect might distinguish the border from other forms of limit. As a physical element, this type of border is a "boundary line", a limit that encloses an entity or collective while simultaneously separating this entity or collective from others, based on a set of rules that somehow justify this differentiation. The border as boundary line is either a physical obstruction located in a natural, territorial setting or the traceable manifestation of a cultural, political or juridical decision with the aim of determining, as clear as possible, where something begins and where some things end.

US Surveillance Tower in Nogales seen from the Mexican side of the wall.
Wall of Crosses in Nogales. Crosses with the names of those who have died crossing the US border.
Foto by jonathan mcintosh. Source: here & here .

In either case however, when borders are demarcations in and of space, they may be rather subtle with regards to the exact beginnings and endings of the discursive practices indicated or generated by them. [18] Beyond the apparent physicality of borders it will be rather difficult to determine where corresponding zones of practice are located in space and how they unfold in time. In addition to this, the constant possibility of its transgression negates any apparent certainty of a border. The border is in most cases actually not a divisional line but a broader, spatial zone. This spatial zone is almost never fixed but always subject to debate and testing. And despite the asymmetrical relationship caused by their mutual differences, both beginnings and endings of border zones share the characteristic of being difficult to determine as well. This determination of the start and end of a beginning and of an ending in particular is a delicate affair. From an historical, cultural as well as an evolutionary perspective, the beginnings and endings of objects, organisms, events and developments are complex trajectories that emerge out of a certain condition and slowly disappear while leaving traces and imprints. Things, organisms, events and developments will emerge out of a temporal and spatial constellation that brings material substance together, and the collapse of this material substance will initiate this process of disappearance. This type of border is no longer a fixed boundary, but a space of differentiation that consists of a multiplicity of various limits.

Securing the Border

Given the nature of the current debates on the polarizations of political space, and simultaneously returning to Foucault's afore-mentioned three aspects of power, the more recent architectural investigations of borders have focused on security, rather than discipline or sovereignty. The notions of discipline and sovereignty should, however, both be incorporated in current border studies, and not only because Foucault's arguments have resulted in some intriguing interpretations and elaborations by contemporary scholars. As will be argued, contemporary border studies and theorizations should introduce a much more fundamental, subtle and complex understanding of the border. The extent of the intrinsic relationship of discipline with the social and sovereignty with the territory would justify that each plays, at least on the surface, a lesser important or tangible role in contemporary border studies when compared to security. However, this negligence is an omission Foucault's arguments could, partly at least, help counter as he had clearly described the spatial components of all three aspects, namely that "sovereignty capitalizes a territory, raising the major problem of the seat of government, whereas discipline structures a space and addresses the essential problem of a hierarchical and functional distribution of elements, and security will try to plan a milieu in terms of events or series of events or possible elements, of series that will have to be regulated within a multivalent and transformable framework." [19]

Watchtower. "Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer". Foto by mr172. Source: here .
Security staff at Glasgow airport May 2010. Foto by hazelisles. Source: here .

Security, in essence, is an anticipation of the wide-ranged possible uses, abuses and misuses of space. On the one hand, a "secured" organization of space is based on an order that needs to guarantee, as much as possible, the absence of any internal conflict. Security protects this status quo within a specified space, but also needs to anticipate the breaching of this status quo from the outside. This is where security becomes anticipation, namely a speculation about possibilities and potentialities towards disruptions that are inherently embedded in space. The border, as a physical element of protection, becomes a dynamic system of security that adjusts with every transgression, optimizing the protective nature of the divide. The development of the Berlin Wall, namely from a painted line on the street at the start (1961) to the heavily secured space it had become toward the end (1989), is an excellent example of an architectural model of an adjusting security. [20] The border is, in terms of security, a spatial manifestation of the possibilities of known transgressions (anticipation) and a spatial reflection on unknown obstructions and intrusions (speculation).

The spatial implementation of the second aspect of power Foucault discusses, "discipline", probably immediately evokes the reference to Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, much to the credit of Foucault of course, as it was extensively discussed in his Surveiller et Punir. In the cited lectures, however, discipline is described fundamentally different, with Foucault referring to the organization and distribution of people and goods in space. This turn to logistics seems rather awkward considering the importance of discipline and the crucial role the Panopticon as a spatial model has played later in his Å“uvre. It introduces an interpretation of panoptic discipline towards display. In the original interpretation, the penetrating gaze of possible presence introduces discipline in panoptic space, but to think the Panopticon logistically would indicate an understanding of panoptic space only as orderly, spatial organization.

Panoptic Prison view. Harou-Romain, 1840.
Kilmainham Gaol prison, built in 1796. Foto by thecolourblue. Source: here .

Foucault's turn to logistics might appear as a simplification but it simultaneously points forward to the counter-model of the Panopticon, namely the Oligopticon, as developed by Bruno Latour. Latour had defined oligoptica as "places on earth that are fully assignable" and that "do exactly the opposite of panoptica: they see much too little to feed the megalomania of the inspector or the paranoia of the inspected, but what they see, they see it well." [21] To clarify this point, Latour analyzed, supported by Emilie Hermant's photographs, the multiplicity of limited gazes of Paris [22] and emphasized the necessity of control in operating the contemporary city. Latour convincingly argued for the limitation of the gaze as the essential precondition to maintain control and discipline in our society. Within the Oligopticon, [23] discipline is not located in the full display of an orderly organization but rather in the limitations of the different organizations of urban space. This multiplicity implies a diversification of forms of spatial control and, simultaneously, of forms of order(ing).

Sovereignty is in the Threshold

Foucault's description of "sovereignty", to conclude, mentions the implementation of a spatial order that organizes the territory and optimizes control for the sake of the sovereign. Foucault clarifies the relationship between sovereignty and the territory through various descriptions of town planning, using Richelieu (the town) as primary example. [24] Designed by Jacques Lemercies in the first half of the 17th century, Richelieu's basic organizational principle originates, according to Foucault, from the military camp, although Foucault's description exaggerates the subtleties of the town's layout, which is less asymmetrical then Foucault described it to be. This relationship between sovereignty and territory has recently been critically discussed by Giorgio Agamben in his Homo Sacer-series. Especially the relation between architectural and military spatial organization has been one of main concerns of Agamben, as the camp constitutes for him the proper spatial model to describe contemporary society. In contrast to Fukuyama's triumphant praise of liberal democracy, Agamben has been extremely critical of "modern democracy's decadence and gradual convergence with totalitarian states in post-democratic spectacular societies." [25]

Agamben has tried to show how every form of power aims at the polarization of power and bare life (which is life stripped of the political). In this process, the juridical act of being declared exempt, i.e. a specific state within law, precedes spatial implementation and inevitably results in the creation of the camp. While "security" is supposed to safeguard a coherent space, when sovereignty allows for a state of exception to emerge, spatial ordering will require a devastating sophistication, and thus complication. Any form of spatial coherency is increasingly negated, as each exception that is defined in, and thus allowed by law, simultaneously means the establishment of an increasingly larger "gap" between law and order. It seems to be no coincidence that Agamben uses the term "threshold", and not border, boundary or limit, when describing the permanent "state of exception" of the camp. For Agamben, the threshold is that "uncertain and nameless terrain, these difficult zones of indistinction", where "the ways and the forms of a new politics must be thought." [26] Such a "zone of indistinction" implies a threshold space where transitions from one state to another are possible, however perverse and problematic within the context of the camp, rather than a border space aimed at limitation and obstruction.

Her Majesty's Prison Maze ("H-Blocks"). A former high security prison for paramilitary suspects (from 1971 to 2000). Lisburn, Northern Ireland. Fotos by Still Burning 2005. Sources: here & here .

The threshold thus introduces another understanding of the contemporary border as limit. While "boundary" and "frontier" imply a certain directionality of the limit (boundary a limit that contains and frontier being a limit that moves forward [27]), both "border" and "threshold" are forms of limit where simultaneously beginnings emerge from and endings disappear into. The difference between border and threshold is located precisely in their ability to make distinction: the border opens a space of differentiation while the threshold offers a space of in-distinction. The argument that is proposed here is to think the border not only as an element of division and segregation, and also not only as a filter that, however selectively, regulates passage and obstruction but also as a threshold space of the simultaneous, which is the meeting point of different practices in the same place or time. These three, distinctive understandings of the border would preferably need to be incorporated in any contemporary form of spatial analysis of the border. With this understanding, the border becomes also a threshold space where spatial practices simultaneously confirm and resist social networks, juridical practices and political ideologies.

Liminal Simultaneity: the Space of Encounter

The contribution spatial analysis should nowadays attempt to make to an understanding of the effects of power on space is precisely located in incorporating this understanding of the border. Without such a model, one will only remain to speculate about the properties of the border. It will, in other words, remain discourse only, rather then discursive production operating towards understanding. It is therefore crucial that the workings of power, and its spatial implementations and implications, are studied in precise detail. In this respect, the objectives for the field of spatial analysis, as described by Foucault, are rather clear: "[…] in the different mechanisms of power intrinsic to relations of production, family relations, and sexual relations, it is possible, of course, to find lateral co-ordinations, hierarchical subordinations, isomorphic correspondences, technical identities or analogies, and chain effects. This allows us to undertake a logical, coherent, and valid investigation of the set of these mechanisms of power and to identify what is specific about them at a given moment, for a given period, in a given field." [28] The spatial models discussed thus far, which mostly have been introduced by philosophical discourse, need a certain "proof" precisely because of the absence of properly developed, appropriate forms of spatial analysis.

Left: In-between space in Havana (Cuba). Photograph of the Border Conditions Research Group. Photo taken by Thomas Boerendonk.
Right: New York City, 2010. Photograph by author.

Spatial practices of a wide variety are inscribing their borders and thresholds into space on a daily basis. These spatial border inscriptions are hardly ever mutually exclusive, but, rather, intermingle, strengthen, underline each other. In the picture, as example, the signs and drawings on the asphalt show several features: (fragmented and derelict) forms of city planning, preparation for underground infrastructural work, (incomplete) movement logistics, traffic regulations as well as a form of street graffiti. The spatial inscriptions are all working towards an astonishing collection of border practices. This local space can be regarded as a space of encounter, namely as the frictional gathering place of different individuals and groups, which have, more often than not, conflicting interests, habits and desires. Accordingly, a strange amalgam of contradictory influences on space can be analyzed in this emerged border space. These borders are needed for (cultural) identity, but also to establish discourse, to create space and they are the result of social as well as professional interaction. An infinite amount of borders are thus produced, probably on a daily basis, and this production turns border spaces into "spaces of encounter" as well as "spaces of negotiation". [29]

No trespassing sign at a fence near Ambassador Bridge from Detroit to Windsor Ontario. Fotos by Thomas Hawk and Kymberly Janisch. Sources: here & here.

The discussion of the border as threshold space thus culminates in the proposed conclusion that the border is the moment of demarcation, but not only, as is conventionally understood, in order to allow for separation and differentiation but to allow for a space of encounter to emerge as well. The border is the Heideggerian bridge, the point where a connection is established between two sides. In this space of the simultaneous, border practices establish connections that initiate temporal trajectories of the simultaneous as well as spatial divisions of differences. Since the border is a space, rather than a line, it is the place where exchange is made possible, where travels begin, where the space of the social originates. At the same time, Agamben's claim that the space of exception is becoming the rule in contemporary society holds true as the border opens space to the exposure of difference, to the seclusion from "others" and to the exclusion of the unwanted or undesired. This feature would explain why the border, as threshold space of the simultaneous, can be both wonderful and horrible. To spatially analyze the border as a space nowadays therefore would imply acknowledging the institutionalization of exclusions and differences on the one hand, while speculating on the bridging of the divide on the other. This bridging of the divide is not intended to "overcome" difference, but rather to simultaneously enable one to enter in an encountering process of similarities.



[1] Charles Jencks: The Language of Post-Modern Architecture. London, 1977. P. 9.

[2] On this issue of "endism", see: Stuart Sim: Derrida and the End of History. Cambridge, 1999.

[3] The declaration of an end has, of course, quite a history of its own, with Nietzsche's declaration of "the death of God", as example, or Daniel Bell's book from 1962 on The End of Ideology; On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in the Fifties, to name only a few.

[4] Francis Fukuyama: The End of History and the Last Man. New York: 1993.

[5] Jane Jacobs: The Death and Life of Great American Cities. New York, 1961.

[6] Jencks 1977 (see note 1). P. 9.

[7] Ibid. p. 80-81. Both references from part 3, "Post-Modern Architecture".

[8] Comparably, Joseph Rykwert has dealt with similar problems when he attempted, towards the end of the 1970s, to locate the origins of the modern movement in the emergence of the "first modern" architects in the eighteenth century. See: Joseph Rykwert: The First Moderns. The Architects of the Eighteenth Century. Cambridge (Mass.), 1980.

[9] This is a quote from George Will, an American newspaper columnist and journalist. The fiercest critique to Fukuyama, however, was formulated by Jacques Derrida mostly in "conjuring – marxism" in his Specters of Marx. The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning & the New International. New York, London, 1994. P. 49-75.

[10] "Presence of the Past" was the central theme of the first International Architecture Exhibition of the 1980 Venice Biennale directed by Paolo Portoghesi, an event that featured the "Strada Novissima". See for instance also Heinrich Klotz's 1984 DAM exhibition and accompanying book Revision der Moderne, Postmoderne Architektur 1960-1980.

[11] Michel Foucault: Security, Territory, Population. Lectures at the Collège de France, 1977-1978. New York, 2007. P. 12.

[12] Rafi Segal and Eyal Weizman (ed): A Civilian Occupation. The Politics of Israeli Architecture. London, 2003.

[13] Henk van Houtum and Ton van Naerssen, "Bordering, ordering and othering". In: Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie vol. 93, no. 2 (2002). P. 125-136.

[14] Inge Boer has argued that this binary opposition between the global and the local is anyhow "invariably reductive, hierarchical and simplistic", since it excludes issues of gender and ethnicity. See: Inge E. Boer: Uncertain Territories. Boundaries in Cultural Analysis. Amsterdam, New York, 2006. P. 2.

[15] See, also, the debates on transnational spaces in: Regina Bittner, Wilfried Hackenbroich, Kai Vöckler (ed.): Transnational Spaces/Transnationale Räume. Berlin, 2007. This debate is described as: "the transnational discourse reflects the interest of disciplines concerned with spatial analysis in elaborating how “the local” is newly construed at a time when international spatial relations and mergers are becoming increasingly complex". Ibid. P. 21.

[16] This is probably the reason contemporary debates have attributed this intensification also to the increased use within post-modern discourses of the notions of "difference" and "differentiation".

[17] This remark is especially interesting in light of he more recent discussions on the notion of "multiplicity" in architecture. See also the multiplicity network, initiated by Stefano Boeri: "any careful study of our surroundings indeed reveals a multiplicity of borders, walls, fences, thresholds, signposted areas, security systems and checkpoints, virtual frontiers, specialized zones, protected areas, and areas under control." In: Gerald Lamprecht, Ursula Mindler, Heidrun Zettelbauer (ed.): Zonen der Begrenzung. Aspekte kultureller und räumlicher Grenzen in der Moderne. Bielefeld, 2012. P. 11.

[18] See for instance the study of the Ceuta border in Morocco by the Border Conditions research group. Conclusions of this investigation were presented by Oscar Rommens and Sebas Veldhuisen in: "Exclaves as Appendices: The Straight of Gibraltar". In: Marc Schoonderbeek (ed.): Border Conditions. Amsterdam, 2010. P. 70-74.

[19] Foucault 2007 (see note 11). P. 20.

[20] See: Jürgen Ritter, Peter Joachim Lapp: Die Grenze. Ein deutsches Bauwerk. Berlin, 2001. Security in the case of the Berlin Wall was, of course, both a security from the so-called threats of Fascism ("anti-faschistischer Schutzwall") but also a securing of DDR citizens' inability to leave their country.

[21] Bruno Latour: Reassembling the Social. An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory. Oxford, 2005. P. 181.

[22] Bruno Latour, Emilie Hermant: Paris ville invisible. Paris, 1998.

[23] "Olig-opticon", from the Greek oligo meaning "few". Ibid. plan 18.

[24] Foucault 2007 (see note 11). P. 16-17.

[25] Giorgio Agamben: Homo Sacer. Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford, 1998. P. 10.

[26] Ibid. P. 187.

[27] Richard Sennett is in my opinion thus wrong in his analogy between boundary as cell walls, which segregate, and borders as cell membranes, which are permeable. The border might indeed be considered a filter, but the fundamental difference between boundary and border is not located in this analogy. See: Richard Sennet: "Boundaries and Borders". In: Ricky Burdett and Deyan Sudjic (ed.): Living in the Endless City. London, 2011. P. 324-331.

[28] Foucault 2007 (see note 11). P. 2.

[29] Boer 2006 (see note 14). In her work Inge Boer has attempted to get away from the unanimity of the boundary towards an understanding of the constant cultural production of  boundaries through the way they are dealt with by people from both sides of the divide.

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