Most skyscrapers built by foreigners

Most skyscrapers built by foreigners

JAKARTA (JP): About sixty percent of the high-rise buildings
in the city were designed by foreign architects, according to an
Indonesian architectural organization.

Rai Pratadaja, a patron of the Association of Indonesian
Architecture Graduates (PASI), said that most of the skyscrapers
in Sudirman and Kuningan had been designed by foreign architects.

"Foreign and local architects are both skillful. But many
foreigners designed the high-rise buildings because the locals
were not given a chance to do so," he said in a media conference
prior to the fourth congress of the organization, which will take
place on Saturday.

He said that among those built by locals were the Bank
Indonesia building, the BII Tower and the Sarinah building, on
Jl. Thamrin.

In the 1970s and 1980s, almost 80 percent of high-rise
buildings in Jakarta were designed by foreign architects. The
construction of those buildings also involved local architects,
but the locals did not play a significant role, as they had been
appointed purely because the regulations stipulated that the
foreigners should work in partnership with them.

He said that in the past few years, there were fewer
foreigners involved in building construction due to the economic
crisis, which had caused the U.S. dollar's exchange rate to soar.