New American embassy to have moat, trebuchet

[The Brain]

With e-mail and teleconferencing you don't even need embassies. Everyone can sit in a bunker in DC.

[HisMajestyBOB]

With e-mail and teleconferencing you don't even need embassies. Everyone can sit in a bunker in DC.

This should be required for all federal contractors. Would really improve the traffic situation around here.

[Grey Fox]

The Canadian embassy in London is the coolest embassy in the world.

#2 is the US embassy in Cuba just because it looks so out of place & is full of irony.

You mean the Russian embassy in Havana, don't you?

Alright, that one isn't much better.

But the US embassy isn't so weird, it is just out of place. A modern glass wall building in seasalt délavé color neighborhoor.

[Josquius]

Moving from Grosvenor Sq to Battersea? WTF? The Oslo embassy is moving, no longer will it be neighbour to the royal palace and is moving out to the suburbs. Same with the London embassy.

In Berlin they moved to the very center of the city, right next to the Brandenburg Gate. Doesn't seem to fit with their security strategy really.

In Bratislava they have a city centre embassy.
Its HORRIBLE.
You have the pretty old town with a few jolly foreign flags sticking out of top floor offices for various other embassies and there is the US embassy with its big razor wire fence and airlockesque gate.
Keep to the burbs.

[Warspite]

The Canadian embassy in London is the coolest embassy in the world.

#2 is the US embassy in Cuba just because it looks so out of place & is full of irony.

Canada House? A lovely building. There's also a marvellous building across the street, also facing Trafalgar Square, that has "CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY" emblazoned high across its front.


How unfortunate the US embassy is moving to Battersea - it has awful transport links.

[Ed Anger]

I don't see the trebuchet in the pic.

I lie in my thread titles. I was going to make the title vague, but decided against it.

[Oexmelin]

Canada House? A lovely building. There's also a marvellous building across the street, also facing Trafalgar Square, that has "CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY" emblazoned high across its front.

IIRC, it was part travel office, part immigration office for new immigrants (who had to take CPR boats and/or CPR railway to get to the prairies).

[Barrister]

The Canadian embassy in London is the coolest embassy in the world.

It's not an embassy!   

It's a High Commission.   

[HVC]

The Canadian embassy in London is the coolest embassy in the world.

It's not an embassy!  

It's a High Commission.  

headquarters of the pot party?

[C.C.R.]

How unfortunate the US embassy is moving to Battersea - it has awful transport links.

It should help cut down on the protesters outside, though...

[Martim Silva]

The Embassy won't be ready until they station some Sherwood Archers in it.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I would say it is more the Nine Elms area rather than Battersea; it is something of a post-industrial wasteland, diplomats from Detroit (if there is such a thing) will feel at home 

Incidentally, the Grosvenor Square site will be sold to some Qatari firm or another for "more than $1bn". So the move should be more or less neutral as regards cost.

[Grey Fox]

The Canadian embassy in London is the coolest embassy in the world.

It's not an embassy!   

It's a High Commission.   

True & it only houses half the staff or something.

It's still a cool building.

[Sheilbh]

This reminds me of the last American embassy.  A young charming President takes over and a new Embassy design is chosen for London.  The design's characterised by walls of glass and symbolises the open and democratic nature of America.

Last time the President was killed and the embassy was completed just in time for massive anti-Vietnam protests, requiring the glass walls to be hidden behind far more substantial concrete walls for forty years

Edit:  Oh and you better get rid of that hideous eagle:

[grumbler]

Last time the President was killed and the embassy was completed just in time for massive anti-Vietnam protests, requiring the glass walls to be hidden behind far more substantial concrete walls for forty years

I used to work a coupla hundred feet from the embassy, and never saw the concrete walls that hid the glass walls (just a line of concrete planters that hid the "dry moat").  It looked like this:


To what "concrete walls"  that hid the glass walls do you refer?  When were they installed.