The Architecture of Diplomacy: Building America's Embassies

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.