A1 Let’s start with the topic of the line, that has been, since I’ve known you—for a long time—very present in your research and in your mind. And I remember that one of the first things we exchanged when we started working together was the graphic novel “Lost in the Line”. At that moment, you were referring to the line in connection with the labyrinth. We’re talking about the labyrinth as the representation of a position of power, because you have to see it from above either to draw it (draw the line) or escape from it. So I think it’s interesting for the readers who follow your work to know how your thinking has evolved from that moment to now. So I guess we can start talking about that if you feel comfortable.
A2 Interestingly enough, even though what you’re talking about was 10 years ago, it hasn’t drastically evolved up to this point; my definition of architecture has consisted in seeing it as a discipline that organizes bodies in space. And so my vision of the line is not really what has evolved, instead, what evolved is my understanding of what the line does: the politics of the line, and the politics and the inequality of bodies vis-a-vis the violence of the line.
Lines are the main medium through which architects design. And lines ultimately transform into walls. Lines becoming walls and walls imposing order, the order of space—an organizational scheme spatialized—that they intend to impose on bodies. To put it simply, we have a rectangular line forming a rectangle on a plan; this is what more often than not we would call a room. It’s very simple. It’s a room and the lines drawn form into walls, and the walls will always have—not always, but almost always—the ability to contain bodies within this order—to say it in a in a very simple way most line-cum-walls that surround us are made in such a way that we cannot cross them. And after that there’s many sorts of apparatuses that were invented to make the lines a little more porous; that’s what we call doors; and that’s what we call windows. But usually doors don’t come just as doors, they come with a lock and key. And so I think there’s something quite crucial here in who gets to act on the porosity of those walls, on the ferocity of those lines, and that’s something perhaps we can talk of a little bit more later, but to go back to the graphic novel you kindly refer to, which was also in the book you published back in 2012.1 The graphic novel was somehow trying to subvert a little bit the way this vision of the line, meaning this vision of a hard non-porous line. And by asking the question, what happens when we look inside the line, at the thickness of the line, which is, of course, mathematically impossible—as lines have, by definition, no thickness—but lines that become walls have a thickness because walls have a thickness. So I think there’s something there, where architecture loses control a bit, because it can-not comprehend some things such as the thickness of the line; that is quite interesting, even though I would not romanticize it. I mean, the graphic novel definitely romanticizes; it’s a metaphorical interpretation of it. It asks the questions, what happens if you get lost in the thickness of the line. And in that case, it was some sort of labyrinth, if we were to imagine the trace of a line. I remember thinking of it this way, like if we trace a line on a piece of paper with a pencil, then we would have like, little particles of graphite all over the paper, but it would not be as continuous and as homogeneous, as you would see it from a human’s eyes, if you would really zoom in, you would start seeing some porosity in it. And so as a graphic novel was like, imagining what happens if you get lost in this little graphite porosity. And, yeah, and in that case, it was a sort of literary, poetic, metaphorical investigation of the thickness of the line.
But I also have a more politically aggressive interpretation of the thickness of the wall, because sometimes that’s quite the space where one no longer has no more any rights, when you’re … when you’re lost in the thickness of the line.
A3 It’s okay, because I was thinking now that you mentioned that, on groups like Decolonizing Architecture for example, have researched a lot about this topic.2 They explain that it’s not only architecture that loses control over this thickness, but also the moment when it becomes a lawless line, because the law doesn’t have any action there anymore. Because, as you were saying, it’s important to question who has the right to act on this thickness or who has the key to the lock to open it, but in this case you entered the thickness and then how do you get out of it? I think it’s a very interesting discussion, and also perhaps one thing that you can elaborate a bit more on, if you have any ideas or examples of what happens in between this thickness, as in borders or in frontiers. I remember from my own experience, when I was living in Guatemala, I traveled very often to El Salvador by car, and the border between the two countries is a river and that river is very thick. So there is a moment when you don’t know if you are in Salvadorian territory or in Guatemala. These are spaces where the dynamics of the people, the social relationships are deeply connected to this idea of non-belonging. I’m here, I’m not in my home, neither in the home of the other. I mean, this is kind of an unknown land. So I wonder if you can tell me your thoughts on inhabiting a territory with no law, a kind of outlaw territory, like an unknown, uncertain territory.
A4 Yeah, I mean, at a philosophical level, I’m not against the notion of borders. At a political level, I’m against the concept of nation state borders, and even more against the embodiment of militarized borders. But going back to a more abstract level, a river separates two banks or more, it’s an interesting interstitial space: it’s thick and its crossing is a ceremony of sorts; and it even sometimes moves!
A5 And just to add to that, at least this is a border not drawn by any human being …
A6 Well, sometimes, humans manage to create a line border in the middle of a river (or a strait), and there is no respect for the river’s thickness; conceptually and politically, they want us to believe that two sovereignties are divided right in the middle of the river, whatever that means. When I say that I’m not against the philosophical concept of the border, I’m particularly thinking of a Édouard Glissant. As a Martiniquean, he thinks of the Caribbean as a geographical place where the borders exist in a very “natural” and serene manner. You might be living in Martinique, and then your neighbors might be from Santa Lucia or Guadeloupe, and so it’s a different Island, and you will have exchanges, but it’s two different sorts of spaces. I think the same can be said about cities, for example, you know, if you live in one city, and you don’t live in the next city, that doesn’t mean that we should have any sort of political consequences because of it. But at least it’s two different entities. And so, is there something interesting in the thickness in the sort of ambiguity of things, but then becomes violent political orders, so to speak? And then this ambiguity becomes a very drastic one. And there’s the risk to romanticize it, we could say: “oh the thickness of the line embodies a place where there is no law, no government, no authorities, all that.” It’s not untrue but for the same reason I think the lawlessness is absolutely terrifying as well, because it means rightlessness. So, for example I refer to a group of about 12 Eritrean asylum seekers, who—in 2012—had crossed Egypt wanting to reach Israel and managed to exit across the Sinai and then went to a border point, a border crossing, and managed to exit the territory of Egypt, but never entered the territory of Palestine controlled by Israel and so on. So for one week, they were quite literally stuck within the thickness of the line. And this is a space of absolute rightlessness. And so that’s something to be to be very careful about as well in the way that we approach those concepts. What is kept from the law potentially means subversion, but it also potentially means, quite simply, death.
A7 Yeah, it’s like living in limbo, I guess. But following this idea, it also reminds me of some statements that are very widespread, in the media or whatever, when you think about the line, most people think about the same drawing that from one point of view is useful to separate from the other, it’s used to join two points. But more and more I think we are tending to think of it only as a separation device, because of the things that have happened in recent history, you know, Trump and his wall, or the wall in Gaza built by Israel, and many more. In that sense, I can think of the metaphor of the astronomers who draw the sky maps, in this case the line is used to join the points (the stars) and not to separate. Can we think of the line in that way, especially in the architectural practice? So I think we should talk a little bit about how the notion of ‘the line’ has changed in the past years, and has become more ideological, a way of thinking?
A8 Yeah. I’m not sure. Because I have only one, very sort of narrow minded understanding of architecture, which is, of course, not saying that there’s not hundreds and hundreds of other approaches to architecture, but mine is strictly physical in the political relationship that it has with bodies. And so even a line that would symbolically establish a relationship, let’s say a bridge—like I mean, you talked about that sort of line in the case of El Salvador and Guatemala—but it’s also a sort of colonial trace as well, a European invention, like so many others. But you would have this other line that would be the bridge itself, but I never read the bridge as a line, I read the bridge as two lines, but when we build a wall, we don’t really think about it as two lines. I mean, when people have to draw a bridge on AutoCAD, they have to trace two lines in the end.
A9 Here I can also think of a funambulist, for example. She or he is walking the line as a kind of bridge, but it’s not two lines. It’s just a line and you are going from one building to the other.
A10 Yeah. But it’s not just a line. It’s a few centimeters thick line!
A11 But it’s not a bridge, let’s say.
A12 A bridge is commonly perceived as the architecture that allows a physical connection and a relation between the two sides of a river, no doubt about this. However, a bridge is also by definition in the space of narrowness. Bridge is always longer than wider, by definition. And so, a bridge always maximizes the degree of control one can assert on it because quite simply, one has to only control each side. And then you’re able to control what happens in between; there’re many historical examples I can think of the massacre of October 17 1961, of Algerians in Paris, but also examples closer to us, as one of the first actions of Occupy Wall Street where 300 activists were stopped and arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge. But the bridge can be a space also for our victories. I mean, one of the most spectacular victories of the Egyptian revolution in 2011 was the incredible contingent of police attacking protesters, revolutionaries on the bridge, and in the end, the police got their ass kicked, essentially. Once you have control of the bridge as a revolutionary force, it’s very, very strong. But so all this to say is that from a strict physical point of view, looking at each architectural invention, a bridge is nothing else than a corridor. And a corridor is, by definition, one of the most controlling spaces that architecture has ever invented. So we should never forget that either.
Going further, now talking about the funambulist, which is another word for tightrope walker. The reason why I love this figure so much is that when I think of the rope, as a tightrope, I’m thinking of the wall. So I’m thinking of someone walking on the wall, someone walking on the border, someone not being free from the wall, because quite literally being dependent on the trace of the wall to walk on it, you know, you might not be able to jump on one side or other, right. And if you jump, then you’re back to like being controlled by the wall and everything. But so you’re not free from the world. It’s not a figure of emancipation, but it’s a figure of subversion because you somehow use the line that was traced to keep bodies on one side or the other or have some of those bodies being able to cross but not some others. This figure of subversion is like using the line in another way, in a way that was not sort of accounted for by architects. So it is true that in that case, it is perhaps closer to a dangling line that forms a wall but it has just the thickness, just enough thickness for one body to be able to walk on it.
A13 At this point I’m also thinking about other kinds of lines or borders that are more and more present nowadays with the evolution of technologies, that are these kinds of invisible borders that become real through data. For example, when someone is not allowed to enter a territory, not because of a physical wall but because the data contained on the passport or on the biometric data related to your name. So these kind algorithmic lines that are arising more and more nowadays. And as your practice and your understanding of architecture is very connected with the physical manifestation of architecture, I wonder how do you see this evolution or how has it affected your understanding of the line?
A14 Some of it has nothing to do with the line, but more has to do with national borders and how borders are not, of course, just contained within the line. Or all the sort of detention centers we know in, in Europe and outside Europe, that’s the interesting thing as well is that all these things have very little to do with the actual line of the border; it’s like the borders are being asked to continue, maybe, in that case using the line as a metaphor. It’s like it’s maybe less the thickness but the line is able to stretch to another territory and then to include something like concentration camps for people whose only only crime is to want to be on the other side of the line. But then perhaps it also touches something that has to do with you know, earlier when I said lines are almost always materialized by walls and that you cannot go through, there’s also many times when we would have these kind of lines and we would technically be able to go through, but whether it’s a cultural or it’s normative there are many reasons that makes us not cross those lines, so to speak.
So there’s this extreme form that would be ‘the line’ you could see for example in the film Dogville3, you know, where the entire village is traced on the floor with lines; and everybody will watch the film thinking “of course you could just go over the line and then you would have crossed a wall”, but then no actor or character in the film seems to see those lines this way. They all see those lines as walls. So I think quite often we are in situations where lines are traced for us and for better or for worse—and I’m not even politically commenting here, nor I’m saying destroy old alliances or destroy all the walls or anything—I’m just saying there are lines or forms that don’t even need to impose their violence on bodies, they their fears, they impose a norm that is strong enough for the bodies to respect them. This is represented very well in a waiting line, for example.
A15 The example of Dogville makes me think that the drawn line is very powerful, indeed. Because when you were commenting about the film, I was thinking that just this year for example, in Chile, where a group of students were drawing house plans on the streets4 as a way to reclaim the right for housing. So, they were using the same kind of powerful representation but in a positive way. So if we think on the many ways of how to use ‘the line’, I think something that is very interesting to discuss is the ambiguity of the line itself, similar to what you were explaining about the bridge—that it can be used to control you but also as a catalyst, as a place where power by the people is also celebrated. And all this makes me think about how important the architectural and graphical representation of these lines are, also as means of communication.
A16 Yeah. And you know, when I was saying like I’m not against all lines I’m not against all walls or something like that. I’m interested in examining the political orders that are contained within those lines and within those walls, but also, exactly like you said. I think no architect should be able to trace any of those lines that will materialize into walls that will enforce a political order without being conscious of the political orders that the materialized lines enforce… This should be very clear, and then architects cannot play the dummy, they’ll be aware that they are fully complicit with this political order. No one should be able to trace lines without fully comprehending their political power.
A17 And talking about this comprehension of the political power of the line, I read your letter to the students in the Architectural Review5 and I’m thinking about that now. Because I think it is very interesting to know, from your experience with the students or from the interns that come to work with The Funambulist, if you think that the students around the world in general, are aware of that political order? I would love to hear your thoughts because for example, here in Spain, or in Barcelona, academia, it’s still very conventional and just slightly deepening the topics on the political agenda of architecture. And I don’t think that the main case is that students are aware of the politics behind the power they have when they draw a line. And, you know, it’s not the same to…to draw a line to propose a house as to draw a line for a prison; so tell me, what is your experience with students and younger architects? Do we have reasons to be hopeful?
A18 Yes. No, but also it’s funny, right? Because I mean, you and I, we go way back. And so we’ve obviously aged. And so we went from being like the small siblings of maybe a little bit older generations to being the older siblings ourselves. Soon to be the, the parents! But I actually very much enjoy this sort of older sibling role, actually. And mostly because I do think that if you talk about students, I think there’s much more than when I was at school myself, for sure. But also, it has to do, I think it’s important to say it, with the demographics of the students themselves. I mean, in the global north, but also all around the world, I think about the gender dimension of architecture, and I think everywhere around the world there are more female architecture students than male architecture students. So even in that very simple sort of gender differentiation, there’s already an understanding of the political power contained within the lines that’s much stronger. And this is not (only) a representation matter, far from it. I’m gonna use a simplistic example: thinking that most of the things that are designed are calibrated on a standardized male body, it’s quite normal that the many people (many of whom are women) who do not fit with this standard understand better what is wrong with it! And gender differentiation is only one of the things that are changing: ableism, racializiation, heteronormativity and social class are all fabricating a standardized body and a standardized design, in relation one to another. And so, of course, if design is clearly not made for us, then you already have a sort of a degree of knowledge that something is fucked up, to put it that way. Or it might take a little more time, but then the analytical gets very simple to understand because your own experience relates to this analysis. So this already means that more and more students understand whereas there’s a big problem on how architecture is a political weapon. And then, of course, I’m not talking about the majority of people, I think architecture is still a very conservative discipline, and also a conservative discipline that does not recognize itself as a conservative discipline, liberal discipline, because everybody is sort of center left when it comes to put in the box, but then no one is really central left when it comes to the political programs at designing. But within this there are pockets of resistance that are getting bigger and bigger. And I’m actually optimistic.
A19 I’m really glad to hear…
A20 But also, you know, I practice tactical optimism,6 which doesn’t mean you need to see a glass half full, because the glass is not half full, the glass is probably 10% full. But at least you look at those 10% you don’t spend your entire time looking at those 90%
A21 Yeah, I consider myself a tactical optimist as well, you know.
A22 Yes, maybe we can begin a conversation like that, like a conversation between two tactical optimists.
A23 But sometimes also, I think, a big problem for the practice is that we live in these kind of bubbles, that we relate only to the people like us, and so my understanding of young architects or students is very similar to yours, but I wanted to listen to your opinion because I know The Funambulist has contributors from everywhere in the world, and I wanted to have another point of view. So I am trying to avoid being trapped in this bubble, and I think it’s all connected because it also refers to the way that we talk about architecture and how we communicate these issues to others with our events, publications, and new courses in academia.
A24 I think that the lines we trace around ourselves can sometimes be called bubbles. And I think the bubble of architects is definitely one that exists. I think the whole middle-class-center-left kind of thing is one. But sometimes I think that the lines we trace around ourselves could be more communities than bubbles. And I think that’s an important one. Because I don’t see a problem with trying to organize politically with people that think the same way. And in the end, we will always realize that we don’t all think the exact same way. We all have different approaches, different perspectives, different backgrounds. But I think it’s important to trace lines around a community of struggle, which doesn’t mean that the line is a closed one, it can be porous, it can accept more people, it can also allow some people to leave. I think we are in much too drastically violent times to not organize this way.
A25 I somehow agree with you. But I think that at the same time one of the main problems of the polarization we’re experiencing nowadays is that we don’t communicate with “the others”. Let’s say that, for example, now with the elections in the US, it’s a binary representation and there is no porosity, there is no middle point, not a balance in between. So perhaps that was the danger I was referring to, I don’t find any problem to relate with, by the way, most of my beloved friends that are part of ‘my bubble’. But I am talking about, perhaps more in political terms that are related with architecture also at the same time, because the power you have to draw that line, and it’s also related with your own understanding of this word, isn’t it? So how can we make a more porous line? Is there a way to do that?
A26 You know, I’m not interested in talking to a white supremacist. However if we talk about … let’s say, let’s take an example: extinction rebellion. I don’t necessarily find everything they do very appealing politically. And I find them in many ways reproducing a lot of white behaviors and perspectives. Does that mean we should never talk? No, I don’t think so. Maybe that’s where the dialogue should not be shot. And we should not be like, well, “you don’t think you don’t think exactly like me and therefore I’m going to shut you.” But then it’s all it’s all a matter of knowing where the line is. Where is the red line? Like what? Like, how different your premises through which you see the world are from mine that I think we actually have nothing to say to each other? I mean, in Europe, many times, this red line is very much present in knowing whether anti-racist groups should be talking to the white left, for example. And this is only possible if they do not condescend anti-racist activists in telling them that racism is a secondary issue, or that it’s only one aspect of a more important anti-capitalist agenda. If there is true respect and some parts of the struggles are shared, then yes, I think that we can talk.
A27 Yeah, I get your point now, perfectly. I was thinking that perhaps too. I think we have enough content now. So to close, I was thinking of going back to the first reflection, so we can have a circular narrative.
A28 Yes. A circular line.
A29 About a, you know, who has the power to draw the line but also too, to build and open these doors and windows? And I was thinking of examples like the situation that happened on the US Mexican border with the seesaws. People were using the porosity of the line in that moment, so to speak, but you criticize this action on social media and on a statement you posted in your blog.7 And so I guess it would be great to close with your thoughts about who has the power to use this porosity or not? And why sometimes these kinds of actions that can be perceived as something good are for you not good enough?
A30 About that. I mean, to be to be very clear, it’s not the actions that I was critical of, because you know, anyone can do anything to that fucking border—it’s fine. Like, it’s not even JR8 doing his whole thing. I mean, whatever he wants I don’t care; it’s not a problem of the action itself that was a problem; it’s on the whole narrative that revolves around around this action and in that case, I mean exactly like you said, who has the power to go on both sides of the line and who doesn’t, whoever was on the US side of the wall or not, or whoever has a little dark blue (or maroon) little booklet with stamps in it in their pockets? Which is a US passport. That person would be able to go on both sides of that seesaw, whereas anyone with just a Mexican passport or any other Central American citizenship would not, and more often than not, we will be talking about indigenous people, indigenous people who’ve been there before those lines even existed for much would not be able to go on both sides. And I think that anything that sort of constructs a kind of “feel good narrative” about this kind of object—such as the borders, this kind of death object where thousands of people have died because of this border—is really irresponsible as a narrative like that ultimately only reinforces the object.
I think it’s a narrative that clearly did not question the validity itself of what is nothing else than a settler colonial line that is being established as an unmovable element? Because we’re having so much trouble thinking outside of ourselves, outside of our time, we have sacralized this line as being a legitimate line between two nation states when, actually, it is very much a random settler colonial line on stolen land. This line was then extruded and offset into a deadly militarized architecture. So I think that we must be a little bit more aggressive in our readings of the built environment from the smallest to the largest scales.