This is very interesting. What to say? With first-hand knowledge of this, I definitely agree, and disagree. Most interesting is the fact that Shanec’s focus (the immediate first examples) are designers crossing over to Southern California, where the issue might have its own ‘flavor’ altogether. This is where I myself am, when in the US: Los Angeles, San Diego, Tijuana,… and a couple of things must be pointed out in this respect:
1. These particular designers have their very own Mexican context for us to discuss (not Chinese, Rumanian, etc.). Within this context, I would not characterize most of them as anything more than middle-class (where most relationships to any extremely wealthy individual tend to be negligible; in Mexico everyone keeps track of ALL relatives, so, yes, any of these designers, together with thousands of other Mexican nationals, may lay claim to some distant relationship to one wealthy Mexican industrialist, but that does not imply financial support of any substantial type). The big hype with ‘super-wealthy’ Mexican designers emerged a few years ago from a few isolated cases in the Tijuana + Mexico City art-circle closely related to Torolab (the big-ticket item being Daniela Rossell, who photographs the ‘wealthy and famous’ ladies of Mexico, and has manufactured very effective branding by actively labeling herself as ‘one of them’). And designers do tend to tag along with their patrons, so, of course, in Mexico, that is often in a context of contrasting hyper-wealth.
2. The cross-over and leveraging of ‘foreign’ designers is heavily promoted from the US side of this ‘border region’. San Diego particularly has been struggling of late with growing southward-reaching tentacles (the more the border ‘strengthens’, now especially post 9-11, the stronger the culture-merging counter-current). Many US citizens in this region feel it is important to ‘invite’ Mexican designers over, and promote them in exhibits, lectures, etc. Even once established here, any opportunity allotted to them tends to come from some US patron, but the decision is influenced by the Mexican context. How are Mexican designers selected for ‘transference’? It seems to be more of an issue of ‘contrast’ than of ‘wealth’. Whether it be for one reason or another, fewer designers are highlighted in Mexico, and typically in some nepotistic fashion (relatives and friends), and it is primarily from this pool of applicants that designers can cross over to the US (and it is the Mexican wealthy who promote this either from the US side as influential ‘residents’, or from the Mexican side by preventing US patronage from seeking too deeply for alternatives). This is the case with the big younger art-design generation emerging in Mexico City and Tijuana (just like the new film-actor generation in Mexico City; it’s always the same 10-15 people you see in every Mexican movie, and the same 10-15 who exhibit at the San Diego museums). Torolab, in my view, seems a bit mediocre in its ‘oeuvre’, and quite a part of this. Sure they are promoting cross-border blending and social consciousness, but they do so based primarily on ‘show’ and ‘ego’ and a lot of ‘lightness’ (a reason why they are actually more closely related to the art world than to architecture). Very different with Teddy Cruz.
3. Teddy Cruz is Guatemalan, so he is ‘necessarily’ an outsider to Mexico, as much as he is involved with Mexican culture and social issues (Mexican culture is simply that conservative; back in Guadalajara, one of the 3 large Mexican cities, for example, there has been a tremendous struggle with ‘accepting’ international architects such as Wolf Prix, Thom Mayne, Gehry, etc. to design a cultural center, and forget daring to commission a renowned sculptor from ‘distant’ Chihuahua to design a principal urban piece in Guadalajara). So Teddy Cruz has not been grown and groomed, and has had to find his own opportunities where he may find them. He has done so in Los Angeles and now where he has helped developed the recent architecture program at Woodbury San Diego. There he has his studio on F Street, where he may be found hard at work with little sleep, or traveling by van or flying coach to lecture, not only in the US but also in Mexico, such as that time I met up with him in Monterrey. The students invite him, they request him, they attend when he shows up. He is thoughtful, considerate, soft-spoken, and very much hard-working middle-class. This type of immigrant has been here to compete for everything at a par with ‘locals’, and has succeeded.
So, yes, there is some validity to the initial comments here, and to the discussion, but valid research is still the tool to illuminate a bit better (everything in light).
And I thought the US was the parangon of free-trade, open-market capitalism!! Surely if that's what you people want, then don't come bitching about it and save the ranting for others and don't be pissed if foreign architects build/ practice there. It's hardly the case anyway as some people previously mentioned in this thread. The reality is that the US architectural market is extremely protected. The AIA cancelled their reciprocity agreements with the RIBA 10 years ago and as far as i know the UK is hardly a 3rd world country. So i very much doubt if there are a lot of 3rd world architects illegally practicing in the States. Please drop some names to illustrate your point. Otherwise take your xenophobic, borderline racist shit to another site.
frankly i envy those with the money and connections and have run across many a truss fund baby in this biz. i dont think any of them were lazy, but the money allowed them to work where and for whom they wanted and allowed them to leapfrog many of us in the process. and now they can be selective in the jobs they take or can run a completely theoretical "atelier" while paying their employees nothing. its the nature of the beast.
you are a hate-spewing idiot. just because of the fact that you can't make it big with your pompous 'american' education, does not mean that people without one cannot. While the architectural education in america is a tad better than most other places, dont you notice that most of the 'good' work nowadays is going on outside america, notably china??? And for the record, a lot of american architects workign in china have a big name and shit design standards. Guess there should be a litmus test for the design quality of these people too ???
following your logic, one could extrapolate that architects with a certain country's education should practise there only. What about globalization and that type of rant that we architects love to blab about???
Honestly it feels to me that one of these 'foreign' firms have laid thier hands upon a job that you were bidding for, and hence the hate.
Do yourself a favor - take some time off from desiging your 'american' single family tract houses and strip malls, and go on a vacation to one of these countries and yes please visit their architecutre schools.
..and look for architecture.. for example in, alexandria, cairo, tripoli, istanbul, damascus, tehran, sofia, bukharest, kiev, bombay, hong kong to name a few, without getting started in latin america.
some of these places have 500 years old buildings still in use. and some exceptional new architecture. open your eyes and know that architecture is still the most wide spread cultural commodity that has no borders.
shanec - your initial post is a prime example of where one should think before you post.
As you remarked:
"Most of the people I'm talking about already have an Ivy League degree. In fact, it is all the fashion these days. Even I bought one :)."
You cant then accuse certain people for seeking out and taking advantage of the same situation you yourself are privy to. Or if you do take exception to this, the only reason must be because they either:
a. Are richer than you even through they come from a "lesser" country, and you have some resentment/envy issues
b. You know as an objective fact that they are less worthy/talented than you are and can prove it and you have some resentment/envy issues
c. They are'nt American and you have alot of issues
I myself have an Australian qualification that I objectively know stacks up very nicely compared to most Ivy League qualifications. I have won awards/exhibited/been published etc, and if I am ever in position where I am granted a place in an American University or on a lecture circuit, I'd be glad to teach you something about architecture in that large geographical area commonly called "the rest of the World".
Interesting reading... First off, I think people on Archinect tend to throw the racist label around far too easily as if they are hiding something of their own. After just returning to the states I see Shanec as an "obnoxious American" but I didn't see racism in his words.
Secondly, I don't buy Shanec's arguments but I do tend to agree that America as a country does not protect our working class very well. Quite easily can foreigners move to the USA and practice architecture while Americans are not nearly as free to move about the world and work inside other countries.
I do NOT find it racist in saying between two equally qualified individuals looking for work in USA I'd rather see an American hired than a non-American. Every other country does it that way - why not us?
"Americans are not nearly as free to move about the world and work inside other countries."
and what do you base this judgement upon??
and anyways, America is the country of immigrants, no ??? I dont see any other country that is so 'new' and is built mainly of immigrants - you have to understand that there are some basic tenets of the USA which it should not compromise.
I was basing my claims on how accepting western european countries (UK, France, Germany) are to giving American's work visas. I have personal experience with this almost impossible process.
Yes, America was a nation of immigrants but don't tell me that other western nations do not have millions of immigrant residents. We are no longer a developing nation that needs a massive inflow of people to sustain our growth. Time will only tell but I just have personal frusturations with failed attempts at working abroad.
You're not thinking strategically here, buddy. While those you loath have come to your country, leveraging their "third world ethnicity," those third worlds they left behind are now devoid of their presence, thus opening up a hole for you to fill. If you’re serious about success you should think about supplanting them.
While they’re busy polluting the waters of the GSD you can become an expat in Paraguay, or wherever, and quickly become the regional architectural demigod. If they are truly “effete intellectual snobs,†as Spiro Agnew put it, then your meat-and-potatoes American work ethic should go over well in their absence. After your punk ass gets run out of town you can triumphantly return Stateside, touting your newfound status as a misunderstood genius and person-of-the-world. Your later works can then all be predicated on this “sojourn,†and probably you can squeeze a novel out of it too.
99.9 % of you people are eating a left wing shit sandwhich. Try to be a bit open minded. Maybe you will begin weighing and considering rather than being concrete bound illiterates reacting to political notions created by folks long since dead.
if your definition of open-minded would keep firms like studio teddy cruz from practicing in the US just because they are from another country (i already destroyed any claim little shanec might have had as to their lack of qualification), it may just be you that is... eating a... shit sandwich, i guess. mmm.
if you're going to make this about reductivist politics, doesn't it seem absurd for a right-winger to imply that a bunch of left-wingers are closed-minded? i mean, your piece of shit party lables itself CONSERVATIVE, as in "please don't change my diapers, i like the texture of shit against my ass, thank you very much." the world is always going to change, people are going to do what they want to do (didn't i hear W mention the word freedom a few times in his inaugural address? maybe he, like you, only meant freedom for americans) and there's nothing you can do about it optimk, so suck a dick.
This thread cracks me up! Ha ha ha - - - Lutyens was a cheeky little monkey. And fuckers make joed angry. I love it.
I can go either way, but I find it quite entertaining to see blind panic exhibited by shit sandwich eaters such as joed if America illustrates to the world its exceptionalism on someone else's watch.
As far as 'please stay out of my country' - - - wasn't it (I forget) who was bitching and moaning about the evil capitalists 'outscoring' the changing of diapers and other 'high wage' jobs?
shanec - not to worry. Most 'problems' are not problems when you look deeper - - - Those awards and teaching positions given to fruity little foreigners are offered in large part to attract rich foreign students who pay three or four times what the homies do. It's a great scam, genius - perfect indication of subtle but powerful American ingenuity. And the best part is that the bloating of their ego's serves to inhibit their ability to realize that the joke is on them. Ha!
i think there is a lot in architectural education that is outdated, and self serving - apart from the fact that the whole process is incredibly expensive.
But i think that work speaks for itself- so i couldn't care less if someone actually technically has the qualification, and ticked box b and c and then paid professional fees (Zaha Hadid is not a technically qualified architect!). I dont mind if someone never trained as an architect- they are still capable of creating incredible work- (John Pawson- self taught)
In fact i think it is refreshing that more projects are realised in new and more innovative collaborations. And i think this could go further. We are living in a far more multi disciplined age where we don't have to be so defining about our design role, or we can mix together with others in the design world to produce incredible collaborative work- but based on talent and not qualifications.
if you're angry that people pull strings to get where they are today- look around you. I think George W might have pulled a few in his time....
anyway for me it's all about design, and all about incredible work, and i don't care who makes it- even you shanec- and by the way you haven't shown us any of yours yet...
WOW that was great. It's too bad the whinners finally chased shanec out of the discussion. Archtects and their little egos are so easly threaten by any diverging opinion that they must unleash their finely honed skill of verbal masterbation in order to stamp out ANYone brave enough to speak out. Very sad. Come back shanec, come back, dont let the fear mongers and the "head in the sanders" chase you away. It amazing how effective the race card can be played to muddle a otherwise clearly stated position. Shame on all of you for not even trying to understand his point. Many of you used his sense of humor and irony against him on the ivy league thing. Let us not forget that educations are indeed earned but degrees are bought (especially those ivy league ones) and before you knuckleheads loose your shit let me explain it in PLAIN words:
The knowledge you gain (education) is directly related to the work that YOU put into it. The degree (that little piece of paper you get when you wear that funny flat hat) is ALL about MONEY. You dont PAY... you don't get the little piece of paper, doesnt matter how hard you worked....OK done for now ...come back shanec!
please stay out of my country
This is very interesting. What to say? With first-hand knowledge of this, I definitely agree, and disagree. Most interesting is the fact that Shanec’s focus (the immediate first examples) are designers crossing over to Southern California, where the issue might have its own ‘flavor’ altogether. This is where I myself am, when in the US: Los Angeles, San Diego, Tijuana,… and a couple of things must be pointed out in this respect:
1. These particular designers have their very own Mexican context for us to discuss (not Chinese, Rumanian, etc.). Within this context, I would not characterize most of them as anything more than middle-class (where most relationships to any extremely wealthy individual tend to be negligible; in Mexico everyone keeps track of ALL relatives, so, yes, any of these designers, together with thousands of other Mexican nationals, may lay claim to some distant relationship to one wealthy Mexican industrialist, but that does not imply financial support of any substantial type). The big hype with ‘super-wealthy’ Mexican designers emerged a few years ago from a few isolated cases in the Tijuana + Mexico City art-circle closely related to Torolab (the big-ticket item being Daniela Rossell, who photographs the ‘wealthy and famous’ ladies of Mexico, and has manufactured very effective branding by actively labeling herself as ‘one of them’). And designers do tend to tag along with their patrons, so, of course, in Mexico, that is often in a context of contrasting hyper-wealth.
2. The cross-over and leveraging of ‘foreign’ designers is heavily promoted from the US side of this ‘border region’. San Diego particularly has been struggling of late with growing southward-reaching tentacles (the more the border ‘strengthens’, now especially post 9-11, the stronger the culture-merging counter-current). Many US citizens in this region feel it is important to ‘invite’ Mexican designers over, and promote them in exhibits, lectures, etc. Even once established here, any opportunity allotted to them tends to come from some US patron, but the decision is influenced by the Mexican context. How are Mexican designers selected for ‘transference’? It seems to be more of an issue of ‘contrast’ than of ‘wealth’. Whether it be for one reason or another, fewer designers are highlighted in Mexico, and typically in some nepotistic fashion (relatives and friends), and it is primarily from this pool of applicants that designers can cross over to the US (and it is the Mexican wealthy who promote this either from the US side as influential ‘residents’, or from the Mexican side by preventing US patronage from seeking too deeply for alternatives). This is the case with the big younger art-design generation emerging in Mexico City and Tijuana (just like the new film-actor generation in Mexico City; it’s always the same 10-15 people you see in every Mexican movie, and the same 10-15 who exhibit at the San Diego museums). Torolab, in my view, seems a bit mediocre in its ‘oeuvre’, and quite a part of this. Sure they are promoting cross-border blending and social consciousness, but they do so based primarily on ‘show’ and ‘ego’ and a lot of ‘lightness’ (a reason why they are actually more closely related to the art world than to architecture). Very different with Teddy Cruz.
3. Teddy Cruz is Guatemalan, so he is ‘necessarily’ an outsider to Mexico, as much as he is involved with Mexican culture and social issues (Mexican culture is simply that conservative; back in Guadalajara, one of the 3 large Mexican cities, for example, there has been a tremendous struggle with ‘accepting’ international architects such as Wolf Prix, Thom Mayne, Gehry, etc. to design a cultural center, and forget daring to commission a renowned sculptor from ‘distant’ Chihuahua to design a principal urban piece in Guadalajara). So Teddy Cruz has not been grown and groomed, and has had to find his own opportunities where he may find them. He has done so in Los Angeles and now where he has helped developed the recent architecture program at Woodbury San Diego. There he has his studio on F Street, where he may be found hard at work with little sleep, or traveling by van or flying coach to lecture, not only in the US but also in Mexico, such as that time I met up with him in Monterrey. The students invite him, they request him, they attend when he shows up. He is thoughtful, considerate, soft-spoken, and very much hard-working middle-class. This type of immigrant has been here to compete for everything at a par with ‘locals’, and has succeeded.
So, yes, there is some validity to the initial comments here, and to the discussion, but valid research is still the tool to illuminate a bit better (everything in light).
thanks fen-om
If ever we had a discussion that needed a moderator this is it
Shanec,
And I thought the US was the parangon of free-trade, open-market capitalism!! Surely if that's what you people want, then don't come bitching about it and save the ranting for others and don't be pissed if foreign architects build/ practice there. It's hardly the case anyway as some people previously mentioned in this thread. The reality is that the US architectural market is extremely protected. The AIA cancelled their reciprocity agreements with the RIBA 10 years ago and as far as i know the UK is hardly a 3rd world country. So i very much doubt if there are a lot of 3rd world architects illegally practicing in the States. Please drop some names to illustrate your point. Otherwise take your xenophobic, borderline racist shit to another site.
frankly i envy those with the money and connections and have run across many a truss fund baby in this biz. i dont think any of them were lazy, but the money allowed them to work where and for whom they wanted and allowed them to leapfrog many of us in the process. and now they can be selective in the jobs they take or can run a completely theoretical "atelier" while paying their employees nothing. its the nature of the beast.
shanec...
you are a hate-spewing idiot. just because of the fact that you can't make it big with your pompous 'american' education, does not mean that people without one cannot. While the architectural education in america is a tad better than most other places, dont you notice that most of the 'good' work nowadays is going on outside america, notably china??? And for the record, a lot of american architects workign in china have a big name and shit design standards. Guess there should be a litmus test for the design quality of these people too ???
following your logic, one could extrapolate that architects with a certain country's education should practise there only. What about globalization and that type of rant that we architects love to blab about???
Honestly it feels to me that one of these 'foreign' firms have laid thier hands upon a job that you were bidding for, and hence the hate.
Do yourself a favor - take some time off from desiging your 'american' single family tract houses and strip malls, and go on a vacation to one of these countries and yes please visit their architecutre schools.
..and look for architecture.. for example in, alexandria, cairo, tripoli, istanbul, damascus, tehran, sofia, bukharest, kiev, bombay, hong kong to name a few, without getting started in latin america.
some of these places have 500 years old buildings still in use. and some exceptional new architecture. open your eyes and know that architecture is still the most wide spread cultural commodity that has no borders.
ok, I'm out of my room now. just wanted to add some reading concerning the above subject
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/14/books/14bull.html?
shanec - your initial post is a prime example of where one should think before you post.
As you remarked:
"Most of the people I'm talking about already have an Ivy League degree. In fact, it is all the fashion these days. Even I bought one :)."
You cant then accuse certain people for seeking out and taking advantage of the same situation you yourself are privy to. Or if you do take exception to this, the only reason must be because they either:
a. Are richer than you even through they come from a "lesser" country, and you have some resentment/envy issues
b. You know as an objective fact that they are less worthy/talented than you are and can prove it and you have some resentment/envy issues
c. They are'nt American and you have alot of issues
I myself have an Australian qualification that I objectively know stacks up very nicely compared to most Ivy League qualifications. I have won awards/exhibited/been published etc, and if I am ever in position where I am granted a place in an American University or on a lecture circuit, I'd be glad to teach you something about architecture in that large geographical area commonly called "the rest of the World".
Good one, you pompous prat.
Hloy shit diabase, that was some proper carving...
Interesting reading... First off, I think people on Archinect tend to throw the racist label around far too easily as if they are hiding something of their own. After just returning to the states I see Shanec as an "obnoxious American" but I didn't see racism in his words.
Secondly, I don't buy Shanec's arguments but I do tend to agree that America as a country does not protect our working class very well. Quite easily can foreigners move to the USA and practice architecture while Americans are not nearly as free to move about the world and work inside other countries.
I do NOT find it racist in saying between two equally qualified individuals looking for work in USA I'd rather see an American hired than a non-American. Every other country does it that way - why not us?
"Americans are not nearly as free to move about the world and work inside other countries."
and what do you base this judgement upon??
and anyways, America is the country of immigrants, no ??? I dont see any other country that is so 'new' and is built mainly of immigrants - you have to understand that there are some basic tenets of the USA which it should not compromise.
"I do tend to agree that America as a country does not protect our working class very well"
i would say this lack of protection is America's greatest strength in the long run.
and wether you like it or not, the american dream is as alive and well as ever.
I was basing my claims on how accepting western european countries (UK, France, Germany) are to giving American's work visas. I have personal experience with this almost impossible process.
Yes, America was a nation of immigrants but don't tell me that other western nations do not have millions of immigrant residents. We are no longer a developing nation that needs a massive inflow of people to sustain our growth. Time will only tell but I just have personal frusturations with failed attempts at working abroad.
shanec,
You're not thinking strategically here, buddy. While those you loath have come to your country, leveraging their "third world ethnicity," those third worlds they left behind are now devoid of their presence, thus opening up a hole for you to fill. If you’re serious about success you should think about supplanting them.
While they’re busy polluting the waters of the GSD you can become an expat in Paraguay, or wherever, and quickly become the regional architectural demigod. If they are truly “effete intellectual snobs,†as Spiro Agnew put it, then your meat-and-potatoes American work ethic should go over well in their absence. After your punk ass gets run out of town you can triumphantly return Stateside, touting your newfound status as a misunderstood genius and person-of-the-world. Your later works can then all be predicated on this “sojourn,†and probably you can squeeze a novel out of it too.
Doberman, I can be ruthless when I have to be...
99.9 % of you people are eating a left wing shit sandwhich. Try to be a bit open minded. Maybe you will begin weighing and considering rather than being concrete bound illiterates reacting to political notions created by folks long since dead.
if your definition of open-minded would keep firms like studio teddy cruz from practicing in the US just because they are from another country (i already destroyed any claim little shanec might have had as to their lack of qualification), it may just be you that is... eating a... shit sandwich, i guess. mmm.
if you're going to make this about reductivist politics, doesn't it seem absurd for a right-winger to imply that a bunch of left-wingers are closed-minded? i mean, your piece of shit party lables itself CONSERVATIVE, as in "please don't change my diapers, i like the texture of shit against my ass, thank you very much." the world is always going to change, people are going to do what they want to do (didn't i hear W mention the word freedom a few times in his inaugural address? maybe he, like you, only meant freedom for americans) and there's nothing you can do about it optimk, so suck a dick.
god you fuckers make me so angry.
This thread cracks me up! Ha ha ha - - - Lutyens was a cheeky little monkey. And fuckers make joed angry. I love it.
I can go either way, but I find it quite entertaining to see blind panic exhibited by shit sandwich eaters such as joed if America illustrates to the world its exceptionalism on someone else's watch.
As far as 'please stay out of my country' - - - wasn't it (I forget) who was bitching and moaning about the evil capitalists 'outscoring' the changing of diapers and other 'high wage' jobs?
shanec - not to worry. Most 'problems' are not problems when you look deeper - - - Those awards and teaching positions given to fruity little foreigners are offered in large part to attract rich foreign students who pay three or four times what the homies do. It's a great scam, genius - perfect indication of subtle but powerful American ingenuity. And the best part is that the bloating of their ego's serves to inhibit their ability to realize that the joke is on them. Ha!
fear eats the soul..
judge the work and not the people.
i think there is a lot in architectural education that is outdated, and self serving - apart from the fact that the whole process is incredibly expensive.
But i think that work speaks for itself- so i couldn't care less if someone actually technically has the qualification, and ticked box b and c and then paid professional fees (Zaha Hadid is not a technically qualified architect!). I dont mind if someone never trained as an architect- they are still capable of creating incredible work- (John Pawson- self taught)
In fact i think it is refreshing that more projects are realised in new and more innovative collaborations. And i think this could go further. We are living in a far more multi disciplined age where we don't have to be so defining about our design role, or we can mix together with others in the design world to produce incredible collaborative work- but based on talent and not qualifications.
if you're angry that people pull strings to get where they are today- look around you. I think George W might have pulled a few in his time....
anyway for me it's all about design, and all about incredible work, and i don't care who makes it- even you shanec- and by the way you haven't shown us any of yours yet...
WOW that was great. It's too bad the whinners finally chased shanec out of the discussion. Archtects and their little egos are so easly threaten by any diverging opinion that they must unleash their finely honed skill of verbal masterbation in order to stamp out ANYone brave enough to speak out. Very sad. Come back shanec, come back, dont let the fear mongers and the "head in the sanders" chase you away. It amazing how effective the race card can be played to muddle a otherwise clearly stated position. Shame on all of you for not even trying to understand his point. Many of you used his sense of humor and irony against him on the ivy league thing. Let us not forget that educations are indeed earned but degrees are bought (especially those ivy league ones) and before you knuckleheads loose your shit let me explain it in PLAIN words:
The knowledge you gain (education) is directly related to the work that YOU put into it. The degree (that little piece of paper you get when you wear that funny flat hat) is ALL about MONEY. You dont PAY... you don't get the little piece of paper, doesnt matter how hard you worked....OK done for now ...come back shanec!
...and oh yeah...it doesn't matter if shanec is talented or not. You can still make a good point without being the imbodiment of said point....
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