The conversation on NPR’s show “All Things Considered” was an interview with Susan Johnson, Embassy President of the American Foreign Service Association conducted by NPR editor Tanya Ballard Brown. Johnson discussed the Design Excellence Program. This program uses government-managed architects and engineers to advise on the design aspects of buildings and workspaces for the federal government. The purpose of the Design Excellence Program is to streamline the design of new buildings and give advice to architects and engineers. Only the federal government could come up with a plan to streamline a process by creating another federal funded agency. The issue at hand is the trend in US fortress style embassies around the world.
Design Excellence is supposed to assist the embassy architects to move away from the modern tendency to sacrifice beauty in efforts to maximize the security of its embassies. How US embassies look is important. The way US embassies look communicates to people in other countries how the US views its role there. By building embassies that look like maximum-security prisons the US demonstrates that it is expecting a hostile reception. Embassy location is also an issue. Originally, the US would use former mansions, old banks, and aged businesses buildings in central locations as its embassies. These buildings blended with the city and did not stand out as a foreign intrusion in the country. After WWII, the US decided to use architecture as a tool to represent Americaness abroad. However, attacks in the Middle East prompted that architecture to put function before form.
The current trend is to locates the embassies outside of town and surround them with barbed wire. The post-WWII trend has been to build embassies that are like bunkers and compounds. According to John Kerry, the US has succeeded in building the ugliest embassies in the world. The US embassy in Beijing is an exception. Its architects used modern western architectural techniques but did not pour a concrete perimeter wall around the building. The London embassy is a remarkable glass and water creation that complements the surrounding architecture. US Embassies must be secure and represent our country.
Works Cited
Ballard, Tanya. (2013). “Can US Embassies Be Safe Without Being Unsightly?” http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/02/26/172978571/can-u-s-embassies-be-safe-without-being-unsightly
United States State Department. (n.d.). “Another Language of Diplomacy: Design Excellence and the U.S. Department of State” http://vimeopro.com/user13782109/home-front-communications-928-samples/video/50389474
