We left our apartment at around 2 pm to walk down the two-kilometer-long border street – Aachener Straße followed by the Nieuwstraat/Neustraße. We walked down the Aachener Straße for about 200 meters when we ‘hit’ the back of the cross-border business centre: Eurode Business Centre (EBC). An office building from the 1990s that is placed exactly on the national border and forced us to choose: left or right, but also, Germany or the Netherlands. In that sense, it did not connect the border—at least not in our experience—but formed an extra obstacle rather, one that emphasised the border. The way this building asserts itself here also made us question: why is this building necessary? Can people not work together without it? How does working together change because of the building? Does it make cross-border cooperation easier or just more literal? Moreover, it forced us inland – towards the interior of a country. Rather than allowing us to wander through this street choosing and switching sides based on oncoming foot traffic or whether we want to walk in the sun or in the shade, for example. We had to make a conscious decision about our ‘starting point’ – our way into the street.
