Designed in USA

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl2LnSCjSeE[/youtube]

Well, my ninjas, it looks as if Foster has been kicked to the curb in San Francisco – and will not be getting that stimulus project that the Architect’s Newspaper reported on a while back. Instead, a local firm will be chosen to work on the project and receive the stimulus pay. To all my non-US based ninjas: I’m sorry to be so ‘pro-USA’ about this whole stimulus thing, but I expect you to be upset if your government is going to hire non-local designers on projects whose entire purpose is to create jobs and get people working/making money. Every ninja for him/herself around here these days…

*caution: rant ahead*

Really, I thought this was important because the legislation that dealt with whether or not stimulus funding had to be awarded to ‘local’ workers was some bullshit, pandering to ‘blue-collar’ Americans [steel manufacturers, in particular, I believe]. Look, I want politrick-cians to make sure ‘blue-collar’ workers are protected, but I hate that the rest of us are marginalized in their rhetoric. Do I work in a steel mill? No, but I still live here + vote. Architects, engineers, and designers are all US workers, too – our interests should be protected by our supposed representation as much as the next ninja. Those of us in ‘white-collar’ professions are just as desperate for work in this recession – and as the government is fairly consistently pushing for a ‘knowledge economy’, people who bought into the concept and became an architect or engineer [or whatever] instead of a construction worker [incurring massive debt, oftentimes, along the way] should be considered in the stimulus bill, too.

Anyways, this should all be in writing somewhere – guilt and bad publicity should not have entered into the decision to not award this stimulus project in SF to Foster. It should have been in the original legislation – and now it should be amended.

.:Buy American? -> via the Architect’s Newspaper

Posted: August 13th, 2009
at 5:25am by orangemenace

Tagged with , , , , , ,


Categories: architecture

Comments: 2 comments



 

2 Responses to 'Designed in USA'

Subscribe to comments with RSS or TrackBack to 'Designed in USA'.

  1. Buy national programs don’t work. You end up with products that cost too much and are mediocre in design. The forces of global commerce win in the end. If a local can’t do a better job they shouldn’t have the job. Detroit went broke because their products aren’t good enough. Asking Americans to buy their cars will just have Americans driving around in bad cars that are too expensive.If we can’t compete we need to admit it and do something we can do competitively.

    rob

    13 Aug 09 at 11:12 am

     

  2. Well, I agree with you to some extent – except that I think that both the New Deal and government funded/aided growth after the second world war both contradict that statement to some extent [tho not entirely]. I would argue, however, that the design field is so much larger than something like the auto industry – in terms of competition – that in this instance [where we’re using taxpayer money to fund projects that are only getting money in order to add an influx of funds to the US market and create jobs] there should be plenty of great designs coming in from US firms.

    Also, had this been a random ‘foreign’ firm, I think reactions may have been different. Foster, however, is essentially a name-brand – it’s hard not to think that that played into the original decision.

    Unfortunately, there’s nothing to compare as of yet – hopefully, some financials and some actual designs will come out, which I think will spur this conversation on.

    orangemenace

    13 Aug 09 at 1:31 pm

     


 

Leave a Reply