American Architects Taking on the World

"Unlike an earlier generation of American architects who built desert skyscrapers just like those in Houston or Atlanta, the new cutting-edge designers don't ignore local culture. 'We like to find out the DNA of a city,' says Hani Rashid, cofounder of Asymptote, who's finishing a hotel in Abu Dhabi and has designed strikingly unconventional towers to be built in Busan, South Korea, and Tbilisi, Georgia. "We don't come into a client meeting and say, this is how we did it in that place, and this is what you should build." The best of the new American generation are not only inquisitive and quick, but they understand a seeming paradox: that globalization doesn't mean standardization. But if their designs respond to local conditions, these architects also are inspired by what's always fueled their work: the infinite, innovative possibilities that lie just around the next corner."