At the end of the day, the competition was less about how a particular building can be enlisted to serve (or critique) nationalism, and more about how architecture as a genre can be used to communicate and propose radical ideas. Architecture is not just a way to assemble new types of space; it’s not just about schools of design or mere buildability. Architecture, here, serves as its own sort of literature— something between a graphic novel and a scenario plan. And when architecture is allowed to express plots and story lines, complete with sparks of political diagnosis, its true potential is revealed.

"White House Redux" originally appeared in the October 2008 issue of Modern Painters. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Modern Painters' October 2008 Table of Contents .