Building in our Europe

Since our building sites are all over Europe, we travel a lot. And we meet people from all over Europe. English clients, French plumbers, Italian architects, Polish truck drivers and Russian émigrés in Spain. We love it that our generation was able to build this continent where we can travel freely in all directions.

Here we are waiting for a Manitou to unload a truck in France. People on these photos communicate in French, Lithuanian, Russian, Polish and English, all at the same time. Surprisingly it works very well.

Finally, Manitou has arrived…

This is another building site in France. Workers are Lithuanians, clients are Danish and Swedish, architect is French, stucco-guys are from Italy. The Italians have made themselves indispensable in this project, they use our wood to run a barbecue. Makes for a very comfortable building environment.

Here are the French, discussing some details. There is this idea of the French always wandering around aimlessly with a casquette, pain and wine, not in a hurry. But on a building site for sure they are different. First they talk and talk and talk some more, and then they work, very well organized and extremely efficient, a bit like the Germans. Lunch is from twelve to two, nothing interrupts lunch. And then in the afternoon they do it again: talk and prepare, and then booom, in a few hours all is done rapido.

The Lithuanians are different. They don’t talk a lot because it is a very difficult language. They work in a more relaxed tempo, but they work long hours. Very long hours. When all the others are gone the Lithuanians often keep going in their own pace until sunset.