The Architecture of Diplomacy: Building America's Embassies - Hardcover

Loeffler, Jane C.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1568981384 ISBN 13: 9781568981383

Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998

Synopsis

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.
The Architecture of Diplomacy is part of the ADST-DACOR Diplomats and Diplomacy series.

About this title

About the Author

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 a

Reviews

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.

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton Architectural Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1568981384
• ISBN 13: 9781568981383
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 406