From the Outside In

Designing New York City Skyline an International Affair

by Amy S. Choi

British, Spanish, Japanese. Yes, foreign architects can thrive in a global city such as New York.

"Good architecture is good for everyone," said Ted Hammer, senior managing partner of HLW International LLP. "It's unfair to say foreign architects are coming into our backyard when the backyard itself has gotten much larger."

Hammer, though, has a reason to be generous toward international architects designing major buildings in New York. His own firm maintains offices in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, London, Shanghai and Seoul. It regularly snaps up projects in Asia and Europe in addition to its work locally.

In fact, most design firms based in New York have hefty presences in other cities around the world.

And within this global marketplace, New York may be the world's most international city. Architects as diverse as Renzo Piano, Santiago Calatrava and Norman Foster eagerly snatch up projects in the city. Even old-line New York firms hire designers from all over the world.

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"If you look at the staff of any architectural firm in New York City, the office roster will be as international a mix of individuals as you could possibly imagine," said Frederic Bell, executive director of the American Institute of Architects, New York chapter. "The New York firms themselves are international."

Bell's former firm built nearly 90 percent of its projects overseas.

According to most prominent local designers, importing international influences will only help keep the streetscape of the city fresh.

"Norman Foster came in from England to do the Hearst project," Bell said. "He's one of the best architects in the world and his buildings are fantastically uplifting, wonderful places to be. How is that a bad thing?"

John Belle, founding partner of Beyer Blinder Belle Architects & Planners, PC., which also has an office in Washington, D.C., said New York thrives on a tremendous mix of talents. "I would hate to see the city become an insular place that did things to discourage architects from other places to work here," he added. "To keep that mix alive, you have to keep renewing it."

Still, despite all of the positives of international influence on architecture, the frequency of non-New York architects winning significant commissions in the city - even if that innovative and fresh design was the best fit for the client - isn't always easy to swallow.

"Obviously it's frustrating," said Bruce Fowle, senior principal at Fox & Fowle Architects, PC. "It's like playing football and driving yourself to the two-yard line and having somebody else move the goal. Still, the development community in New York needed a shakeup."

While different cultural approaches to design are invaluable to building a city's streetscape, differences in the legal and logistical processes can slow down even the most promising of projects. Although new City Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden is doing her best to foster sensitivity to fresh design and good architecture, the task of getting a project built is still a behemoth challenge for designers and developers not intimate with the intricacies of building codes, zoning ordinances and approvals processes.

The solution is in collaboration, which many New York-based architects eagerly do with foreign architects both for the creative and business perks. Some work on a one-off basis, while others participate in organizations such as the Global Design Alliance, which brings together more than 3,000 engineers and architects in different cities to help ensure that designers working on projects far from home can find a local partner.

Other companies make it an aesthetic priority to collaborate. Fox & Fowle, for example, is working with Renzo Piano on the headquarters for The New York Times while Beyer Blinder Belle is working with Piano on the Morgan Library and with Calatrava on the transportation hub in Lower Manhattan.

"For all his talent and experience, Renzo had not done a New York City office building," Fowle said. "The Times building was his vision, but in terms of functionality and affordability and meeting the code, it was a true collaborative effort."

And Belle said that in a city like New York, "the building really is better when there is a local architect involved. It may be different in other places, but in New York the complexities of the regulations may have as much influence on the project as the overall design concept. And for me, working with a fellow architect and being exposed to a different way of working is wonderfully refreshing. It does nothing but stimulate you."

AIA's Bell said the creative diversity brought to New York City by international architectural forces is "good for us."

"Design can get stultified and stifled if there aren't new pressures from elsewhere, whether it's about the use of materials or how to work with building code," he added. "An architect who comes from a different culture will have different ideas about light, environments, everything."