INTERNATIONAL PRACTICE

International practice sounds glamorous and fun, but is it something that your firm should consider?

Overseas work can be expensive, disruptive, and a serious distraction. Some firms have even destroyed their domestic practice by diverting too much energy and too many resources to foreign work.

FIRST HONG KONG BIENNALE

Construction frenzy may have taken hold of Shanghai and Beijing, not to mention China's hundreds of other towns and cities. But for the past ten years, Hong Kong has floated behind serenely, like a successful, rather conservative older cousin.

Still, there are signs that the city is developing something that other Chinese cities lack: public discourse. Its first architecture biennale, running through March 15, 2008, headlines a growing public interest in the built environment.

HEAVY THINGS SEEM TO FLOAT IN AIR

Somewhere between the nostalgic musings of I. M. Pei and the flickering of an independent-minded slideshow, noted Marcel Breuer expert Barry Bergdoll expressed perhaps the most remarkable aspect of Breuer's architecture: "by the end of his career, even heavy things seem to float in air." Bergdoll illustrated his point with a series of striking images in which massive concrete structures balance as if on tiptoe.

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