Crisis in American Construction!

The New York Times reports that high-profile European architects who are building more in the United States are finding difficulty finding contractors capable of building anything that has a level of craft or quality. In the construction industry in the United States, it is typical to settle for joints between building materials that are a half inch, where the same detail in Europe can be pulled off with a sixteenth inch joint. The European crafts person doesn't exist in the U.S., where we are content nailing the hell out of our construction and filling gaps with silicone and chicken wire. We like things cheap, fast and dumb (Always Low Prices).

As more high-profile buildings by foreign architects rise in the United States, and as computers allow architects to strive for engineering, design and construction complexities never before imagined, a gathering rumble can be heard across the profession about the way America builds. The country has garnered a reputation for overlooking gaping joints, sloppy measurements and obvious blemishes, and refusing to deviate from even the most outmoded standardized practices.

While architects like Renzo Piano and Raimund Abraham complain and struggle to get architecture built here to European standards, others, such as Herzog & de Meuron accept the fact that a country content with living in cheap McMansions and shopping in CMU built vaults are not capable of dealing with the complexity and quality found in Europe.

When building in the United States, Herzog & de Meuron likes to have a Plan B. The kind of stolid cast-concrete walls that give European architecture a look of permanence from Day 1 are out; they just don't come naturally on these shores. So for the New de Young Museum in San Francisco, the architects decided instead on a flashy metallic skin.

These architects are able to detail a project in a way that allows for some of the slop inherent in American construction. (continue reading below...)

Sloppy American Construction [NY Times]

Though to some not all is lost. Santiago Calatrava, the 'one-liner' architect who plops down bird skeleton looking buildings and train stations everywhere (look out New York!, the downtown Disney-esque to be Ground Zero site is getting one) worked closely with American construction managers and even invited them to Europe for ten days to ensure they could achieve the quality he was looking for in his Milwaukee Art Museum. These architects are unrelentless in their vision, and hope one of the affects of our global economy will be a change of attitude in the American building industry.

This can be viewed two ways:

The first is this would be a good thing, maybe Americans will quit settling for less (this goes much further than the building industry, think cheap VCR's, clothes, furniture, stuff you can buy at Wal-Mart) and take a little pride in their surroundings and what they own. It is too often that you see a fixture or piece of furniture at a Home Depot or Target and hear it naively being described as being 'European' design. Christ, I hate that. Just because something isn't made of fake brass or wood print veneer over MDF doesn't mean that it's European.

On the other hand, we like the cheap crap that we can spend little money on and replace when advertisers brain-wash us into thinking that we need to replace it when something new comes out. That way we can send it right to the land-fill and have some updated cheap crap, rather than spending a little money on something and having it last at least 30 years because it was designed well to begin with and won't fall apart after 6 months. But that isn't our culture, and it doesn't have a place in our current consumption patterns. Consumer goods that are designed well and built to last cost more money, and more often than not end up in the hands of yuppies and sophisticates who read the New York Times Magazine and summer in the Hamptons.

And all this relates to the American landscape. While the projects featured in the New York Times article were mostly museums (that cater to those who summer in the Hamptons and don't buy cheap crap), and are located in the urban core of large cities, the majority of built work in the U.S. is exurban, beyond the suburbs that ring the urban core. This is where Santiago Calatrava isn't likely to plop down one of his bird buildings and shove a Wal-Mart up it's ass, and press the contractor to get the concrete and VCT just right. But more Americans are going to visit a Wal-Mart instead of a museum. European architects aren't struggling to get a McMansion built just right. Should we strive to take more pride in our landscape (our surroundings) and put a little more effort into the design and quality of a Target or the Boston Chicken that sits in front of it. Or do we keep accepting that we're going to tear down the Target in 15 years because Target is going to become Super Target and needs to expand, and Boston Chicken is going to need to re-image itself, and that image is tied directly to the architecture of it's store.

As the impact of the 'global economy' continues to be felt, it is going to impact the American landscape [or landscapes overseas] pretty soon.

Comments

[Adam]

Interesting stuff - depressing and doubtlessly true.

Along the same lines, Nurri and I have noticed an interesting phenomenon that happens in certain small businesses locally - notably ethnic restaurants, but also nail salons, spas, etc. - where the business owner engages contractors for interior work who have immigrated from the same place.

What winds up happening is that the standard of construction work that prevails in that country, including some surprisingly obscure quirks and details, gets reproduced in toto in New York. The result, to our eyes, is "extraterritorial" businesses: Internet cafes identical to the last detail with their counterparts in Seoul, sushi bars finished to Ginza taste with millimeter fidelity, and so forth.

If H & de M are so underwhelmed by local standards, they might consider seeding a pool of Swiss immigrants. Who knows, after five or ten years they may have Stateside contractors they're comfortable with!