Going East
July 3, 2005
Shanghai instead of Schwerin, Warsaw not Wuppertal: German architects are increasingly looking for work abroad.
"A lot are leaving," the president of Germany's Federal Chamber of Architects, Arno Sighart Schmid, told the dpa news agency.
The most interesting markets are Eastern Europe and China, but that isn't all. "The potential (for German architects working abroad) hasn't really been recognized here yet," Schmid said.
Try Dubai?
At the opening of the Day of German Architecture, Baden-Wurttemberg Prime Minister Günther Oettinger had this advice for architects left jobless in today's meager German building landscape:
"I tell them, go where the world's cities are still growing. Go to China or Dubai," Oettinger said.
Albert Speer, Jr. (photo) and Thomas Jocher are two German architects who long ago discovered the opportunities that awaited them abroad. Both are in charge of large projects in China.
Speer works together with German and Chinese partners on more than 80 projects in China. Jocher's architecture firm, Fink and Jocher, is planning a new city for more than 800,000 residents, some 200 kilometers from Shanghai.
In Eastern Europe, a number of Austrian architects have already made their way into the workplace.
Promotion effort
"Our members need to get active and land these projects themselves," said Schmid.
In order to facilitate this, the chamber created what it calls the "Architecture Export Network," a platform aimed at raising the image of German architects.
"The move across borders isn't easy. Hurdles -- like language problems -- are enormously high." Training, too, needed to be synchronized in order to make cross-border work feasible.
While Eastern Europe and China are constantly planning and developing new construction projects, there are fewer new buildings going up in Germany. In the first quarter of 2005 alone, the volume of new construction fell by 20 percent, Schmid said.
Making work at home
He added that in addition to looking for work abroad, architects in Germany should be developing new fields of work at home.
"We were always geared toward growth, but now many cities are shrinking. It's a change in paradigm for architecture," Schmid said. Instead of putting up new buildings, existing ones could be renovated or altered, especially given Germany's changing demographics.
"Apartments need to be renovated for the elderly. There's a lot of work in that," Schmid said.