The Foreign Service Journal, September 2005

F O C U S O N D I P L O M A T I C S E C U R I T Y E MBASSY D ESIGN : S ECURITY VS . O PENNESS he fearful stance assumed by isolated, walled compounds that represent the United States abroad is cause for concern. At a time when administration officials including Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld are touting the urgent need for better public diplomacy, the State Department is building embassies that do not reflect that agenda. In fact, the inaccessibility of these buildings, coupled with the new standardized design, may be harming efforts to portray America as an open society. This is regrettable, but not hard to explain. First, while no one argues with the need for increased security, few dare to question the no-risk security imperative that is responsible for the faceless architecture and the com- petitive craving, evident even among government agen- cies here in Washington, for bollards and barriers that mark one facility as more strategically important than another. Intentionally or not, the process of securing cer- tain buildings has the effect of making others more vul- nerable, both here and abroad. The interconnectedness of individual security decisions is something that has not been adequately assessed. Late in 2003, for example, having determined that they could not penetrate America’s brand new 26-acre hilltop consular compound in Istanbul (designed by Zimmer Gunsul Frasca in 1999 and completed in 2003), terrorists blew up the more accessible British consulate and a neighboring bank instead. In the aftermath of that incident, which claimed dozens of lives, including that of the British consul general, State Department officials felt vindicated in their decision to abandon the former U.S. consulate located near the British facility and move to the new hilltop compound. Yet according to British press reports, there was no immediate call in the U.K. to aban- don existing facilities. As The Times reported, “British diplomats would be loath to retreat behind the high walls and suburban locations of their American counterparts.” Touring the wreckage in Istanbul, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw declared: “Everybody is now a tar- get.” When viewed from that perspective, providing securi- ty is not a piece-by-piece process, but more of a sequen- tial challenge. Once our offices are fortified, businesses and banks become targets, then hotels, or homes, or churches, or even schools. And if by circling our wagons we imperil our allies, then we are only relocating risk, and that is really no long-term solution to the threats we face. T I S ARCHITECTURE IMPORTANT FOR DIPLOMACY ? A N ARCHITECTURAL HISTORIAN DISCUSSES THE NEED TO BALANCE SAFETY AND ACCESSIBILITY . B Y J ANE C. L OEFFLER , P H .D. 44 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / S E P T E M B E R 2 0 0 5