From the playful Bubblegum Alley to the serious and minimalist Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Western Wall, and from the restrictive Berlin Wall to the encompassing Great Wall of China, We examine some of the world’s most famous walls.

“We build too many walls and not enough bridges,” Sir Isaac Newton once complained. True enough, Google Earth shows that literally, there are more walls than bridges, or than any other free-standing structure, in the world. Ever since man learned to live out of a cave and build houses, walls have taken stage as civilizations’ “rock stars”— from Constantine’s Wall of Constantinople to today’s sidewalk graffiti. Walls restrict rather than allow, they define rather than break boundaries.

They are used to segregate classes, such as the ancient walls of Jericho, the caste system palaces of India, and the Philippines’ Intramuros or “walled city” that then separated the Spaniard colonists to Filipinos. Walls also define borders, such as the one proposed to be built between Mexico and USA, and Israel’s World Heritage-listed Old City walls of Jerusalem, which attempt to map out the areas for Jewish, Christian and Muslim worship.

The following 5 walls may have served different purposes, but for the people who see them each day, they are physical reminders of what men can do, for the better or for the worse.

Death Strip: The Berlin Wall

It was a beautiful Sunday morning in August 13, 1961. Ana, not her real name, was clad in a pretty white wedding dress, ready to cross the border from East Germany to the West, where her husband-to-be, Adam, was waiting for her on a local parish. As Ana and her escorts approached the border, they were surprised to see that barricades have hindered the path. The government built the barriers overnight and without warning, separating even railways, subway routes, and cemeteries. Ana tried finding alternative pathways, but all of East Germany was draped in barbed wire. Soldiers watching over the enclosures threaten to shoot Ana, and everyone like her who wanted to cross the border. Later, minefields and large concrete walls were built behind the barbed wires. Ana, along with thousands like her, would not be able to see their loved ones outside of East Germany for the next 28 years.

Ana’s story is just one of the sad highlights of the Berlin Wall, erected by the Soviet-run, communist Eastern Bloc or East Germany to prevent further brain drain due to the migration of about 3.5 million of its citizens to the more prosperous West Germany. It symbolized the “Iron Curtain” or separation between Western Europe and Eastern Bloc for more than a quarter of a century, or from 1961 to 1989.
Later, a part of the wall was called the “death strip,” where people who tried to escape were shot to death by soldiers guarding the towers along the wall. Of the around 5,000 who attempted to escape from the wall, 98 to 200 were killed.  In 1989 after weeks of civil unrest, the East German government finally allowed its citizens to cross the wall on November 9. Both East and West Germans celebrated and climbed the wall to meet each other. At last, after 28 years, Ana reunited with Adam and they finally got married. In the next few weeks, parts of the walls were chipped away, and then industrial equipment was later used to remove almost the rest of it. The fall of the Berlin Wall symbolized the end of an area, and paved way for Germany's reunification, which formally concluded on October 3, 1990.

Today it's a tourist attraction, where murals are painted on the remains and people still cross to somehow share a part of its history.

China’s Great Wall of sorrow

A Chinese legend tells that a young couple, Meng and Wai, were happily living together when the emperor of the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shi Huang, ordered his soldiers to force Wai and other young men like him to work for the empire’s greatest project: The Great Wall of China. Immediately, the imperial army separated Wai from Meng to work on the wall, which soon became a series of 10,000 stone and earthen fortifications covering over 5,000 miles of even cliffs and seas in northern China to protect the borders from foreign invaders.

Meng allegedly traveled by foot for miles, following the snaking path of the dragon-like wall to look for Wai. When she finally found her husband, he was already lying on the field. He died because of too much exhaustion. Meng cried so bitterly that her scream was said to have made several kilometers of the Great Wall to collapse. She later committed suicide by jumping off a cliff. Tales like that of Meng Jiangnu tales are very popular in China. The Great Wall, nonetheless, is a World Heritage Site “owing to its architectural grandeur and historical significance,” according to the UNESCO.

Gate of Mercy: The Wailing Wall

Yitzchak Rabin, Israel’s fifth prime minister, said in his book that their great victory after winning Israel’s independence is when their soldiers first reached the Western Wall. “There was, and never will be, another moment like it,” he said. Such is the importance of the Wailing Wall, Western Wall or Kotel that even centuries before Rabin, many Jews had given their lives for rights over the wall. In Judaism, the Western Wall is venerated as the sole remnant of the Holy Temple or the Temple of Solomon, which God instructed King David to build on the Temple Mount in 10th century BCE. The Babylonians was able to ruin the First Temple in 586 BCE except for a platform that is now part of the wall, since Jews believe that the God promised the temple cannot be destroyed. King Herod then renovated the shrine and called it the “Second Temple,” which again, was attacked by the Romans but was never completely destroyed. The Western Wall remains unscathed.

Today, the Wailing Wall is a major pilgrimage site and one of Israel’s “seven wonders,” often included in the itineraries of diplomats visiting the land. The wall has been doubled from 30 to 60 meters while its 20,000-square-meter plaza can hold close to half a million pilgrims from all over the world. Many gather there to celebrate the Shavouot festival or pray in God’s “open court,” believing that the wall is the “Gate of Mercy” and the closest they can get to the Foundation Stone or Dome of the Rock, the holiest spot in Judaism. Tradition says that no one is permitted to step on the Dome of the Rock since it is considered the “Holy of Holies”, where the First Temple was constructed during Biblical times. Jewish tradition also states that when water starts trickling through the wall’s stones, it signals the advent of the Messiah.

Controversial Memorial

In 1981, an American-Chinese lady picked up a delivered package from the Vietnamese Memorial Fund. She had anticipated for heartache upon opening it, nonetheless, she peeked through the envelope and read the message it bore. Her eyes turned round. She couldn’t believe that she, Maya Lin, a 21-year-old undergraduate from Yale University, has defeated 1,420 others in a contest to design the memorial for one of the longest and most controversial wars in US history. A group of war veterans, including those who lost in the competition, were just as surprised as Lin. They were expecting a man to win and heroic statues to be included in the design. Instead, Lin’s winning artwork is a granite, V-shaped wall with one side pointing to the Lincoln Memorial and the other side to the Washington Monument. The V-shaped is symbolically described as a “wound that is closed and healing.”

Completed in 1993, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. honors the members of the U.S. armed forces who fought and died in the Vietnam War. An estimated three million people pay a visit each year. The wall has a pathway where visitors may walk, read the names, leave memorabilia or pray. When a visitors looks upon their reflection, they can see some of the more than 58,000 names engraved on the whole wall. The reflection is meant to symbolically bring the past and the present together.

Despite the controversies, today, Maya Lin has become a world-famous artist and landscape architect. In 2007, the memorial she designed was ranked tenth on the list of “America’s Favorite Architecture” by the American Institute of Architects.

The stickiest wall in the world

On a lighter note: One of California’s “most-talked-about landmark” is Bubblegum Alley, a 15-foot high, 70-foot long wall dotted with millions of multicolored used bubble gums and chewing gums from passers-by. This 20-meter stretch between 733 and 734 Higuera Street in downtown San Luis Obispo was theoretically started after WWII, when a San Luis Obispo High School class initiated the sticking of bubble gums on the wall as a graduation practice. Some historians, however, believe that it began in the 1950’s as a contest between the students of San Luis Obispo High School and Cal Poly. When Cal Poly students felt those from San Luis Obispo High were trying to beat them on the gum walls, the college students tried to get the upper hand by launching the Bubblegum Alley.

Whatever the history of the alley may be, one fact is certain: the wall is one of the world’s most popular. It already underwent full cleaning twice in the ‘70s, under shop owners’ complaint that its 20-year-old chewed gums are “unsanitary and disgusting.” In 1996, however, the petition to clean the alley was rejected since the wall has been attached to local customs, even sought by some as an “art.” Through the years, fraternities and sororities posted their notes on the wall, freshmen and football rookies placed their numbers, while couples have left their love letters or chewed bubble gums shaped like hearts.
Today, while politicians see the alley as an “eyesore,” the local community believes it is a “special attraction” that brings good luck to anyone who cares to pass by to stick his or her own bubble gum.