Email #42 - Strangers Visit Seattle

I hate it when an email list goes off-topic, like I'm going to do here.

Rather than send another Arch Hall renovation photo, I'm sending you photos instead of the "Best of the Show" (in my opinion) from last weekend's UW Dept. of Architecture Symposium: "Strangers in a Strange Land." The symposium focused on issues related to practicing architecture across national and cultural boundaries.

All nine speakers (from eight global firms) were excellent, but if I were the judge, I'd give "Best of Show" to Craig Dykers, an American who is the spiritual leader of the architectural collective Snohetta based in Oslo, Norway. He (and Snohetta) had the most interesting projects, stayed on-topic and was a spectacular showman behind the podium, very similar to Frank Gehry in that respect.

But don't take my word for it. The whole conference was videotaped so you can witness both Dykers' presentations. The first is about 20 minutes long at the Seattle Central Library and the other is about 30-40 minutes at UW Kane Hall.

Here are some of the highlights from his presentations:

1) For the nomadic "reindeer people" of northern Scandinavia who do not recognize national boundaries or even the concept of "place," Snohetta was asked to design a modern library. To fit the nomadic culture, they designed two buildings, one in Norway and the other about 300 miles away in Sweden. Whole programs within these buildings were then designed as separate modules so that they could be easily hauled by truck and installed in the other building, 300 miles away. This pleased the nomadic people, but the Swedish government killed the project because of political issues they had with the nomads.

2). For the Norwegian Embassy in Berlin, Dykers envisioned a huge multi-story slab of granite (marble?) that would serve both as a dramatic symbol of Norway as well as a load-bearing wall for the roof at the building entrance. Although the engineers certified that the stone structure was sound and danger-free, German building codes stipulate that "natural materials" cannot be used for a load-bearing structure, which would have to be man-made. Dykers objected, but he nevertheless had to install two load-bearing steel columns flanking the big stone. But he designed the columns so they could be easily removed in case the German building codes were changed in the future. As the last word, Dykers then added a similar column in the center of an interior skylit atrium space. This column holds up nothing, except of course the air above it.

3) The big story with Craig Dykers/Snohetta is the design and construction of Bibliothecca Alexandrina (Library of Alexandria) in Egypt. That story would be a book in itself, but he made two points that I found especially interesting:

First, although the new library was intended as a revival of the classic Alexandria Library that burned to the ground in classical times. there were no fire codes stipulated for the modern building by either the Egyptian government or other agencies. Snohettta had to create its own fire code for the building, and then comply with it. That was very difficult, he said. I hope they got it right.

Secondly, Dykers said there was a huge problem with theft of materials from the site during 12-year construction period, much more so than at other sites. Different anti-theft measures were taken, but none of them worked very effectively.

Then Dykers suggested that they should consider the widespread theft as an added value to the local Alexandria economy. In the same way the new spectacular library would be an added value to the whole city, the Egyptians should consider the stolen materials as a public subsidy for rebuilding the city's infrastructure, and especially in the neighborhoods. Today he says the same building materials seen on the Library can be seen throughout the city on many small buildings and homes.

4. The only spontaneous applause to erupt in the middle of a presentation at the UW Symposium came when Craig Dykers tried to explain why it takes 100 Snohetta architects and employees to do the work that a typical 40-person company could accomplish. The reason, Dykers said, is that everyone at Sonhetta goes home at 5 pm. APPLAUSE!  APPLAUSE!  APPLAUSE!

Dykers decried the architectural practice of working long days and nights without extra compensation as exploitative. In the new Snohetta office in New York City, he has asked the workers to unionize! That has sent a shiver of fear (or hope) throughout other architecture offices in NYC, he said.

So that's a little bit of what happened at the "Stranger in a Strange Land' Symposium. Next time I'll send an Arch Hall construction photo.

John Stamets
Nov. 3, 2006