ABSTRACT
While architects have traveled the world throughout the twentieth century for leisure and inspiration, today the degree of air travel for work is unprecedented. Moreover the architects, dislocated from a Euro-centric context, were no longer situated in a customary relationship of center and periphery providing a new platform for global discourse. While business-class travel is intended to alleviate these problems, tickets that are often four times as expensive as economy fares create a hierarchy of economy, business and at the very top first-class architects. Such an increasingly nomadic existence is the norm for this genre of architects, with Yung Ho Chang commuting between Beijing and Boston, and Craig Dykers between Oslo and New York. In the end, a critical global practice relies on a delicate balance between global travel and a strongly rooted local base. The balance between direct communication and mutual understanding is essential.
