The Architecture of Diplomacy: Building America's Embassies
- Book Review,
by Jane C. Loeffler
From Library Journal
This book covers a neglected chapter of American architectural history, the history of American embassies around the world, from the earliest beginnings in the 19th century to the present effort to build in the new capitol city of Berlin. The author is an accomplished historian, and she has written a fascinating, readable, and scholarly chronicle. She takes into account the ins and outs of American political history along with the "ooohs" and "ahs" of American aesthetic history. Matters of security, function, and style are addressed as well. Most of the book concentrates on the last half century, during which American embassies morphed from inviting modernist symbols celebrating democracy and transparency into forbidding military fortresses serving security and opacity. For all architecture collections in larger public as well as academic libraries.?Peter S. Kaufman, Boston Architectural Ctr.Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Architectural Record, January, 1999
"Insightful and meticulously researched, this fascinating history of America's embassy-building program is filled with stories of international intrigue and bureaucratic snarls. Beginning with the the dawn of the Cold War, Loeffler explores the forces and challenges (political, financial, social, symbolic) that affect such projects...Building an embassy is a supremely complicated feat, this book ably shows, one requiring as much diplomacy as design."
Metropolis, August/September 1998
"The Architecture of Diplomacy reads like a Washington political thriller..."
American Studies International, February, 1999
"Loeffler's book is an indispensable contribution to understanding our current diplomatic problems and an invitation to think seriously about how to solve them."
Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, U.S. Ambassador to India, 1973-75, Honorary Member, AIA
The Architecture of Diplomacy is a splendidly presented treatise on both subjects. Which is to say diplomacy as well as architecture. Beginning in the 1950s, as new nations came into being across the globe, the United States built new embassies designed as statements of recognition and welcome. Almost invariably, the new countries began as democracies, and our new buildings were intended to express the achievement and accomplishment of American democracy. As much as modernism can do, was done. If many of these buildings now stand as a reproach to existing regimes, so be it. The State Department planners of the 1950s built better than they knew!
Book Description
The Architecture of Diplomacy explores the often innovative architectural design of America's embassies, the partisan governmental battles that made them possible, and the political ramifications of their construction. Beginning with the inception of the U.S. embassy building program in 1926, and continuing through the 1996 competition for a new embassy in Berlin, The Architecture of Diplomacy examines a remarkable yet little-known chapter in architectural history. It focuses on the 1950s, when modernism became linked with the idea of freedom and the State Department's Office of Foreign Buildings Operations began to showcase modern architecture in its embassies. Architects could build abroad in styles never sanctioned at home, resulting in unusual and sometimes outlandish designs intended to express an "open" America overseas. Indeed, the embassy building program was part of the nation's larger effort to establish and assert its superpower status following World War II. Terrorist threats and espionage scandals also shaped the worldwide building program, and continue to affect it today. The Architecture of Diplomacy features the stories behind the Rio de Janiero and Havana embassies by Harrison & Abramovitz, Ralph Rapson's designs for Stockholm and Copenhagen, Gordon Bunshaft's work in Germany, Eero Saarinen's constructions in London and Oslo, and Edward Durell Stone's embassy in New Delhi. Other architects involved in the program included Arquitectonica; Pietro Belluschi; Marcel Breuer; Walter Gropius; Kallmann, McKinnell & Wood; Richard Neutra; and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. Author Jane C. Loeffler obtained access to original correspondence, drawings, and photographs that have never been published. This title is a must-read for anyone interested in American foreign policy and the intersection of architecture and politics. The Architecture of Diplomacy is part of the ADST-DACOR Diplomats and Diplomacy series.
About the Author
Jane C. Loeffler graduated from Wellesley College and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She earned her Ph.D. in American Civilization from George Washington University. In 1998, after publication of this book, the State Department awarded her its Open Forum Distinguished Public Service Award in recognition of her contribution to international affairs. She is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
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