Naturally, welders were trained in espionage and spies were trained in bricklaying. The metal skeleton was built as a broadcast antenna for all the radios that were built in the walls. The entire building was built with more surveillance capability than the Big Brother house, and when our spies finally caught on, it was so far advanced that the building was unusable for diplomatic purposes with any nation more important than Tonga. It had to be scrapped and rebuilt, this time by American personnel.

So now, nearly twenty years after the Soviet Union collapsed, we're in the midst of building our new, most important embassy in Iraq, and things are being fucked up again. As Marx said, "History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce."

I prefer much deeper philosophers:

"The history book on the shelf... is always repeating itself."

-Waterloo, ABBA

It is not the embassy of a Western democracy, but the fortress of a totalitarian, occupation army. It’s the Ministry of Love made real.

No. Spirit wouldn't put out last night.

this is the architecture you get when the program is based on fear. it is the defining quality of all contemporary american architecture from the mcmansion to the embassy.

That's a great point; I never thought of it that way, but you're right.

it only took me 10 years of practice to realize that's what i do all day (fear-based architecture).

the firm that did the bagdhad embassy is berger devine yeager:
http://bergerdevineyaeger.com/