Plenty has been said about whether Olympic athletes should speak out about China's human rights record, now the New York Times looks at the issue from the angle of architects.

Well-known American architect Daniel Libeskind recently revived an old debate about the rights and wrongs of working in countries with repressive leaders, or who fall down on human rights issues. He said architects should think long and hard before working in China.

Lightning rod

From the New York Times:

" There is little question that this is a highly charged global moment for the profession: a building boom in Asia and the Middle East, combined with a hunger for designs by name brands, has created unparalleled opportunities for architects to make their mark …

" One lightning rod in the debate is Rem Koolhaas's mammoth headquarters for China's state broadcast authority, CCTV … Mr. Koolhaas suggested at the outset of the project, which he was assigned in 2002, that by the time his tower — a hulking hollowed-out trapezoid — was completed, China's censorship of the airwaves might well have changed. (The building is almost finished.)

" Mr. Koolhaas is known for arguing that market forces have in any case supplanted ideology. Some interpret that stance as a way of avoiding the harder questions and a not-so-subtle reminder that money drives the most ambitious projects in the West.

" "I have often found Rem Koolhaas’s provocatively ideological neutral stance problematic," said Barry Bergdoll, the chief curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art. "I want to hear architects try to think that through. I want to know that they’ve grappled with it." ..."

Deeds and conduct

The New York Times says there's been plenty of discussion about the issue in the blogs of the architectural world.

What do you think? Do architects have a duty to consider the conduct and deeds of the countries they design for? What about Beijing-bound athletes, tourists and business people what are their duties?