By Witold Rybczynski
Five years ago, I wrote an essay for Slate about Mexican architect Enrique Norten. I characterized Norten, whose work I admire, as belonging to the rationalist tradition of Modernism. I also observed that, judging from some of his recent designs, he was succumbing to pressure to produce increasingly unusual and startling buildings more along the lines of the Expressionist anti-rationalism of architects such as Libeskind, Hadid, and Mayne. "It would be a shame if Norten were pulled in this direction," I wrote. "The theatricality weighs uneasily on his unsentimental and tough brand of minimal modernism." Well, he was pulled. In the following two years he designed a number of gyrating skyscrapers whose fey whimsy rivalled the anti-rationalists. Thankfully, none were built—the Great Recession saw to that.
It is impossible to exaggerate the chilling effect of the economic slowdown on the architectural profession. For a developer or an institutional client faced with a weakening market or a diminished endowment, the easiest thing to do is simply pick up the phone and cancel any project that is not actually under construction. Even if it's under way, there is still time: In Las Vegas, a 49-story Norman Foster-designed hotel stopped at 28 floors. Between 2007 and 2009, the Dodge Index from McGraw-Hill Construction, which measures construction activity in the United States, dropped from 135 to 85. As a result, architectural firms shrank drastically, layoffs of 50 percent or more were common, small firms simply closed up shop, and older architects took early retirement. Since the recession was global, even international practices like Norten's were not insulated from the slowdown.
via www.slate.com
