The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : The fabric and cable man

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Nov 10, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

The fabric and cable man

Deepa Kurup

Horst Berger

BANGALORE: He has that in him which sets apart the pioneers from the accomplished. He admits that he has had trouble with his profession after it was “invaded by the new breed of architects” with their fancy designs and disregard for the basics.

Prof. Horst Berger lives in New York and cares deeply about the environment, which explains the massive fabric structures he creates. He designed and built the famous King Fahd stadium in Riyadh and the Denver Airport, which are made entirely of fabric and cable. The absence of steel and concrete reduces the cost of lighting and air-conditioning by 80 per cent and makes complete ecological sense. In an interview with The Hindu held on the sidelines of the ongoing Structural Engineers World Conference, he says he does not agree with US President George Bush’s stance that “saving the environment is voluntary” and appreciates former US Vice-President Al Gore who “gave up his political career for what he believes in". The light-weight structures that he has built reflect heat and absorb light. The walls are made entirely of fabric and the building he made in Jeddah for Hajis is 43,000 sq. km. He calls these structures his “forest in the desert”. By embedding photovoltaic cells into the walls, the heat can even be trapped to generate solar power on a small scale, he says.

Prof. Berger is on a break from teaching and confesses that he may not go back at all. “Taking a class is some sort of an addiction. If you’re lucky you manage to make the glow in their [students’] eyes. But I am getting old now,” he says.

He enjoys his work and is proud of what he has achieved. He says that he is afraid that the world has gone too far and too fast. “At some point we will have to wake up to the fact that we need to build with an eye on conservation,” he says, adding, “Structures like the Olympic stadium in Beijing make no sense to me. He calls it the bird’s nest but that makes zero sense. It uses 50,000 tonnes of steel, while an equally big one that I made uses 3,000 tonnes. So there goes ecological literacy, out of the window.”

He is learning to play the recorder and has played the piano all his life. He says structural engineers and architects could borrow a lesson or two from his music class where students listen to each other and manage to play together to create music. He hopes that people would listen to each other.

“I think this whole green building thing will make that difference. People will eventually stand up and decide what makes sense and what doesn’t,” he says.

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