经济学人下载:美国大使馆,挖壕筑壑

Embassy architects argue that they are creative where the rules permit it. Thomas McCarthy of Page Southerland Page, a Texan firm which has designed 17 American diplomatic compounds, is very proud of the tributes to local tradition it incorporated into the embassy in Ouagadougou, for example, in the form of a shaded but open-air waiting area and a zigzag decorative motif on the external walls. But aesthetics and security are just two of a host of competing priorities.

大使馆的建筑师们表示，他们在规定允许的范围内充分地发挥了创造力。德州公司Page Southerland Page公司的托马斯·麦卡锡曾为美国设计过17座外交使馆建筑群。他为将当地传统融入到驻瓦加杜古大使馆建筑所做出的贡献感到自豪，比如，阴凉却露天的等候室和外部墙面曲折的绘画图案。但美学和安全性只是大量优先竞争因素中的两个而已。

The State Department insists on fixed prices and completion dates, with predetermined penalties for overruns. Yet conditions in the host country can be uNPRedictable to say the least. Page Southerland Page has had half a dozen projects interrupted by civil wars or terrorist scares. Even in places at peace, the obstacles can be hard to foresee: a dead tree on the site in Phnom Penh turned out to be revered by locals, forcing the design to be changed to preserve it; in Kigali, excavations for the foundations unearthed human remains; in Kiev the winters are so cold that it was hard to keep the concrete from freezing; and in Monrovia an arms embargo impeded the import of the explosives needed to blast away some awkward rocks.

美国国务院坚持固定的建筑成本和竣工日期，对预算超支或延期完工有预定的处罚。然而退一步说，东道主国家的局势是难以预知的。Page Southerland Page公司已经有六项建筑工程因内战或恐怖威胁而中断。即使在和平地区，有些障碍也是难以预料的：在柬埔寨金边市，为了保存一棵当地人所尊崇的死树，建筑师不得不更改建筑设计；在基加利，工人挖掘地基时出土了人类骸骨；在基辅，酷寒的冬天经常使混凝土冻结而无法使用；在蒙罗维亚，武器禁运阻碍了炸药的进口，使得一些棘手的岩石无法引爆清除。

It took six months for imported goods to get from Congo-Brazzaville’s main port to the embassy site in the interior, Mr McCarthy notes, but that was an improvement on the Sudan, where the government refused to issue certain import permits and visas at all. Yet ever more imported material and outside expertise is needed since Mr Obama began a recent drive to make government buildings, including embassies, more energy-efficient. And then there are America’s rules about procurement and contracting, with standards on everything from sustainability to labour relations. Think of it not as messing so much as digressing.

麦卡锡注意到，将进口货物由刚果主要港口布拉柴维尔运抵内陆的美国大使馆需要六个月时间。苏丹政府以前拒绝发放某些进口许可证及签证，但现在情况已有所好转。然而，由于奥巴马近期已将美大使馆在内的所有美国政府建筑纳入节能计划，美驻外大使馆建筑工地将会比以往更加需要进口材料和外援专业技术人员。美国有自己的一套采购和合同签订规则，并为可持续性到劳动关系的方方面面制定了标准。与其说它离题太远不如说它是一团糟。