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It's difficult to tell from the picture, but it looks like just another box. Now Richard Meier's design looks beautiful.

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Look, you can't land a helicopter in an emergency vacation scenario on the other two. What were they thinking?

It looks very economical, just what the American dreamers need right now.

I'm not a big fan. It looks like an Apple store.

Fortress America. The illusion of being transparent.

The Mayne looks like it's got a helipad!

It's a Borg ship, straight out of Star Trek!

It looks like a shiny Borg cube from Star Trek has landed!!

7. At 3:13pm on 24 Feb 2010, steve633 wrote:
It's a Borg ship, straight out of Star Trek!
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The American message: Resistance is futile.

Another glass covered shape !

What a suprise.

The Richard Meier design looks like soemthing that would become a listed modern building.

The winning design is anonymous and bland.

But maybe thats what wanted.

Where is the start of the queue to get immigration visas?

Fingers crossed the Conservative Councillors in charge of Wandsworth Council send this awful design packing.

Just because the building needs to be secure is no excuse for it to be ugly.

I think '(boring)Borg Cube' sums it up.

'we are the US embassy - prepare to be americanised'

it looks like a glass version of The AT&T Performing Arts Center in Dallas, which if I remember right did not garner huge public support. I would have to agree with it just being another "modern box"

Am sorry, its just another case of... "what do we do with so much left over cement?". Every US Embassy around the world looks the same. Spice it up a little bit without losing the security elements.

The Normans built things that looked like this after they settled here, too.

All of them are UGLY. One looks like an Drive-in movie screen.
I hope they come up with something different design.

Richard Meier is always a classic choice, but blimey, I much prefer the Thom Mayne proposal to the box!

In the hearts of American progressives everywhere, where was my vote?

It reminds me of a giant glass box sort of like a goldfish tank. Its not very inspired and it looks like he spent all his time on the parkland then remembered he had to put a building so thought "whats quick and easy" ok cube there we go perfect.

I personally think that buildings should inspire and not think Borg Cube like so many others have posted.

Quite repellent. Sad to see another bit of architectural blight in such a great city.

Like others, I think it's a pity that they've gone for the most conservative solution - I like the Meier design. This is presumably to be built on the site of the former Nine Elms Cold War - sorry I mean Nine Elms Cold Store :-)

@Ian_Russel Comment No. 3


Perhaps the American helicopter pilots can't land a helicopter on the other two buildings but our British boys can land a helicopter on a toothpick if they had to!

;-D

Given the extensive security zones surrounding American embassies, there is no chance any of them will ever fit into any neighbourhood.

Assuming the surrounding tower blocks are there for keeps and not added as a backdrop, I would say the 'boring box' is quite appropriate, and to be honest the current building in Berkley Square is no stunner. Thi is a functional building that is no worse than half of the other commercial building that get approved everyday. Make it 4 times taller and it will look like most of the blocks in Canary Wharf.
I hear they have sold the old place to the Qatari's. I wonder how long it will take them to find all of the bugs (electronic veriety)that the CIA will leave behind.

Nevermind Helipads, Flags... where are the flags? Americans love a good flag.

Its a Borg Cube!

The other buildings are way cooler looking. But this is not an art museum or a tourist attraction. It is an embassy which would rather blend in, than stick out.

It probably will get the nickname, "The Cube," but whats inside is what counts. Looks can only go so far. Durability and stability are more important.

Go USA!!!!!!!!!! :)

Speaking as a former 'insider', I was once told that the existing building was considered to be vulnerable due to the high proportion of glass in the exterior walls. Looking at the all glass 'Borg cube' makes me think that the Americans must have developed some kind of super-glass since then. If that's the case, why don't they stay put and just replace the windows? Maybe the old building can't support the structural integrity field.

As an American engineer I thoroughly apologize for the travesty that is the Borg Cube and can only hope that enough people with tongues firmly in cheek start putting various Starfleet ships (or local sci-fi franchise ships as appropriate) around the perimeter to try and hold back the tide of assimilation.

The Meier design is interesting; while not beautiful from all angles (although it is very rare that anything ever is) it does manage to look futuristic. It wouldn't be out of place in Caprica City. Pei Cobb Freed & Partners' design splits the difference between the two in case Meier really was too different for any group as stuffy as the State Department. Either one would be far better than the unintentional message of "you will be Americanized; your individual and cultural distinctiveness will be added to our own and you will be made to service /us/."

actually it's modelled on the sort of castles William the Conqueror and his thugs built and justified for the same reasons too..... a not even a symbol but the proposed reality of the US Imperium

How about the cowardly deadbeat American government pay up for the £4m they owe to London in congestion charges? Just who on earth do they think they are?