ABSTRACT
By the mid-1970s, because of the ‘boom years of
the Vietnam era and the growth of international
construction, particularly in the petrodollar Middle
East . . . foreign markets were becoming a staple
of the big builder’s construction diet’ (Southern
Exposure, 1980, 8, p. 101). However, domestic markets
increasingly contributed to that diet as well. This
was evident from the early to the late 1980s, as a
major U.S. recession provided incentives for many
AEC professionals to globalize their architectural
operations, and as smaller fi rms and family-owned
subsidiaries became subsumed within larger
corporate conglomerates. In the last quarter of the
American Century, foreign/domestic hybrids (i.e.,
joint ventures and limited partnerships) increasingly
characterized the nature of U.S. international con-
struction activities. What other kinds of dynamics
were operative regarding the exporting of American
architecture during this fi nal generation of the
twentieth century? This central question frames
what follows. The answers are myriad:
1. further involvement in overseas construction
activities by the U.S. government, but with
professionals’ consistent complaints about
effi ciency;
2. more intense competition from both overseas and
within the U.S., as more players entered the fi eld;
3. shifting geographies of focus, as the Middle East
throughout the 1980s waned considerably and as
other regions, Latin America and particularly East
Asia, waxed constructive;
4. increasingly sophisticated technical responses to
the sharp challenges posed by foreign work;
5. deeper sensitivity to the cultural contexts in which
AEC fi rms from the U.S. practiced; and
6. pervasive indications that the United States
– through architecture being erected by U.S.
