Abstract

The clichés are tiresome but as usual contain some truth: engineers and architects struggle to work really creatively together. They are, after all, distinct disciplines with separate bodies of knowledge, but also involve different ways of seeing and often have different values. Yet to achieve a successful building or structure, something uplifting, architect and engineer must be able to understand each other, respecting their differences while working towards the same goals. For the architect this means an engineer with an architectural sensibility, one who does not think he is an architect but who can be a true design partner, such as Werner Soebek from Germany and Jürg Conzett from Switzerland.