![]() Or as The Economist’s Prospero summarized, “The State Department is in the process of moving the American embassy in London from glamorous Mayfair to a 450-acre industrial site on the south bank of the River Thames.” The new owners of the Saarinen building are Qatari Diar, the development wing of the Qatari government, which will convert Saarinen’s masterpiece into a hotel.ĭemonstrations occurred regularly in front of the Eisenhower statue, U.S. That was the Bush Administration (although the ground-breaking for the new embassy did not occur until November 2013). ![]() He was wrong, though, that the Obama administration made the decision to leave central London for its outskirts. Trump was right that it may well have been America’s finest embassy ever, and that its posh Grosvenor Square location may have been the best of any American embassy anywhere. When Donald Trump tweeted his condemnation of the relocation of the American embassy, he was both right and wrong: “Reason I canceled my trip to London is that I am not a big fan of the Obama Administration having sold perhaps the best located and finest embassy in London for ‘peanuts,’ only to build a new one in an off location for 1.2 billion dollars. Its elegant furniture and fixtures were designed by Charles and Ray Eames, its terrazzo floors gleamed, and light poured in from its cleverly designed exterior. In 2004, The New York Times derided the security measures that resulted in the embassy’s “hulking menacingly in genteel Mayfair.” Yet, in its early hopeful days, the embassy ran a renowned library open to the public. embassy journeyed from promising symbol of a cooperative future in the Kennedy-Macmillan era to an often unloved, heavily armed citadel of iron and concrete barriers after 9/11. Since 1938, it has stood in Grosvenor Square, which was the site of General Dwight D Eisenhower’s headquarters in World War II, and often called “Little America” (a title that will now be conferred south of the Thames, says US Ambassador Robert Johnson). Chancery) in London, which opened in 1960 at a high point in US-Anglo relations. In anticipation of its opening, we’re taking a look back at Saarinen’s distinctively modernist U.S. Kennedy Airport’s iconic TWA Flight Center, a midcentury marvel by architect Eero Saarinen. 60 color and 100 b&w illustrations.For some time now, we’ve been religiously following the progress of the TWA Hotel inside John F. Among Saarinen's associates, the author suggests, including such names as Cesar Pelli, Robert Venturi, and Gunnar Birkerts, Saarinen became""something of a prophetic figure for the way his buildings evolved from an expanding, project-based vocabulary rather than from some modern functionalist ideal."" Posthumously granted the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects in 1962, Saarinen was a master who well deserves a tribute such as this. Saarinen believed his buildings should seek to physically express their intended uses:""Conveying significant meaning is part of the inspirational purpose of architecture and, therefore, for me, it is a fundamental principle of our art,"" he once wrote. As Roman's late colleague Ignasi de Sola-Morales writes in the foreword, Roman seeks to""explore the architectural mechanisms by which an architect can produce a valuable body of work, despite its apparent lack of unity."" Through copious photographs, diagrams and well-turned writing, Roman paints Saarinen as a poster child for a pluralistic architectural practice, and extols his holistic, if sometimes mercurial, attitude regarding the built environment in general. His work, according to Roman, offers an interesting case study precisely for its lack of focus. Although never distinguishing himself with a signature style, Saarinen executed some of our most memorable mid-century commissions: Dulles Airport, the TWA Terminal at JFK and the Gateway Arch in St. Underappreciated second-generation modernist architect Eero Saarinen (son of the celebrated Finnish architect Eliel Saarinen) takes his star turn in this well-illustrated, large format career retrospective, with intelligent, fluid commentary by architect-historian Roman.
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