Paranoid spirit of George Bush era would live on in this fortress
It's a fair bet that the US State Department didn't reckon on the level of insurgency they have encountered from London's planning authorities.
A bit of shock and awe from big name architects, they might have thought, and mission accomplished.
Instead they find the Mayor and CABE objecting to their proposed new embassy south of the river, while English Heritage is mumbling about listing their existing pad in Grosvenor Square, and thereby slashing its value.
The new embassy is not even designed yet, and its architect has not been appointed, but CABE are right to make a stand now. If the brief points towards an un-neighbourly and inhospitable building, that is what we will get, whoever designs it. Something like this happened with the existing embassy: designed by one of the greatest American post-war architects, Eero Saarinen, it is one of his least good buildings.
The new embassy project, conceived in the Bush era, seems still to carry the anxieties of that time. Only American architects have been considered, on security grounds, as if Milords Foster or Rogers might sneak off to Waziristan and sell the plans to al Qaeda.
The new embassy would benefit from more of the spirit of Obama. It is a remarkable idea to move it to its new site, and could do amazing things for the area. But first it has to avoid being a paranoid fortress.
