American architects are "threatening London with a rash of quite unsuitable buildings. The revenge of the once rebellious colonies is to undermine our historic capital," Lord St. John of Fawsley has said, in response to the influx of U.S. architects into Britain. It is "an invasion, and one more of Vandals than Goths," says Lord St. John, onetime government minister and now chairman of the powerful Royal Fine Art Commission.
St. John was speaking to an audience consisting largely of British architects, whose professional figurehead, Royal Institute of British Architects President Maxwell Hutchinson, has also expressed concern at thee American "invasion." Hutchinson feels that British firms should receive the commissions that are going to Americans.
'Alien Approach'
Both St. John and Hutchinson, backed by a number of critics, argue that American designers has an alien approach. "Urban design," insists Lord St. John, "is not the American architect's strong point." Americans are used to putting up huge buildings on cleared sites - "If an old building is in the way," he adds, "it is more often than nor torn down to make way for its successor." He has evidently not talked to American developers outflanked by tough landmarking policies. Indeed, his comments are both patronizing and xenophobic. (An American architect working in London observes: "He reminds me of white supremacists back in the sixties who said they had nothing against blacks but world just prefer them to stay in their own areas.")
But why are the activities of American architects in Britain so controversial? Is it just a simple matter of parochial protectionism? It is not hard to see why American firms choose to set up shop in London - one of the world's leading financial centers - which has enjoyed a development boom throughout the eighties. They see it equally as a base for work kin Europe, and recent political events suggests that Moscow, Prague, Warsaw, and Bucharest may soon provide a demand for American expertise in the field of building. The practice of architecture is now international, and British architects are working throughout the world.
To some extent, Americans have been made the scapegoats for a widespread dissatisfaction with the buildings produced by the eighties boom in Britain. The first U.S. firm to establish a serious presence in London was Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), the largest in the United States and well-known for classic Modernist landmarks like the Lever Building in Manhattan, the Sears and Hancock towers, both in Chicago, and the Yale Rare Books Library, all executed under the overall direction of SOM's brilliant design director, Gordon Bunshaft.
SOM had, in fact, built in Britain as early as the midsixties an office block outside London for Heinz Company, followed by buildings in Nottingham and Bristol. These jobs, however, were carried out from Chicago or New York with local architects overseeing construction.
SOM's London office was opened in 1986, with partner Bruce Graham in charge, in direct response to a significant commission. Developers Rosehaugh Stanhope decided to entrust the later phrases (eleven buildings) of their mammoth Broadgate office complex - Europe's largest - to SOM in preference to Arup Associates, which
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