The General Services Administration’s efforts to raise the quality of government architecture date to 1994, when it established its Design Excellence Program to reverse a decades-long trend of government commissions going to firms with the deepest political connections rather than to those with the most talent. One of the program’s greatest accomplishments is that it was able to maintain its high standards of design despite mounting security concerns that began with the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

Image Control and transparency: The United States-Canada border station, designed by Smith-Miller & Hawkinson, in Massena, N.Y. Credit... Nancie Battaglia for The New York Times

The visual transparency of projects like Richard Meier’s district courthouse in Central Islip, N.Y., completed in 2000, and Morphosis’ 2007 federal building in San Francisco, were proof that it was possible to pump up security without transforming government buildings into fortified bunkers, even as the country’s anxiety mounted over fears of more terrorist attacks.

The Massena station is the latest chapter in that history. As you come over the St. Lawrence River on the bridge from Canada, you see the big sign looming directly in front of you.

The metal letters spelling out “United States” are painted the yellow of a yield sign. Their top halves are tucked underneath a translucent polycarbonate screen that encloses the second floor of the building, giving them a blurry quality and imbuing the sign with a sense of mystery. You wonder, is this simply an emblem of American pride, or is there something more nuanced going on here? Some private code the viewer is meant to decipher?

The answers are in the architecture.

As you approach the station, yellow lines funnel you into one of several lanes  some for cars, some for commercial trucks  before disintegrating into a series of yellow bollards that lead to checkpoints to the right and left of the main building. A few yards from the guard booth, ominous-looking security cameras and warning signs flank you on both sides.

Those with a paranoid turn of mind may feel they have entered a gantlet in which they are relinquishing more and more control to government authority with every step. But any such impression is quickly tempered by a sense of ease of movement. There are no curbs anywhere, which emphasizes the smooth, flowing surface of the asphalt. The slender canopies over the checkpoints resemble airplane wings on a runway, as if parts of the complex were preparing to take off.