The recent news that the design of the forthcoming American Embassy in London is to be limited to American firms only ('British firms barred from US Embassy competition') isn't enormously surprising; the modern American embassy structure don't exactly extend the open hand of cultural freedom. In Beijing, Berlin and elsewhere, recent buildings are effectively fortresses in the post post-modern idiom, insular compounds that are as aesthetically dated as their websites, the architecture wrapped up in protective layers that are now overtly physical as well as electronic. Back in the heat of the Cold War, the threats were from bugs secreted within. This 1987 Newsweek piece, 'The Battle of the Bugs', chronicles the efforts of the Americans and Soviets to electronically get one over one another during the 80s: 'Washington sent in another debugging team, and a huge array of microphones was detected in the structural concrete. The bug network covered the most sensitive area of the eight-story chancery building, a windowless floor that was obviously intended for secret operations.'

Physical defence has now entirely overridden aesthetic concerns. Given that the new US embassy is unlikely to have river frontage, it's hard to imagine exactly where the new structure is going to end up. Nine Elms isn't exactly the most exciting of locations, with most of its history effectively grubbed up and concreted over by first the railways and the wharves and warehouses (including the long-demolished Cold Store), then by decades of non-descript industrial estates and vehicle depots and the occasional little gem like The Optimists of Nine Elms, an obscure Peter Sellers film, complete with large false nose (stills, introduction and short clip).

Seen from above, the opportunities for world-class architecture seem minimal, to say the least, in amongst the big sheds and arbitary street patterns, all far removed from the open fields and timber wharves shown on Greenwood's 1827 Map of London. But the words is that New Covent Garden Market, opened in 1974, is now due for major redevelopment, which will involve the demolition of the expansive space-framed structure (home to a sprawling car boot sale at weekends, full of Eastern European foods and products). Presumably this site, once the site of the Nine Elms locomotive works (moved out of London in the late C19), will then become to a piece of major diplomatic architecture. Will the new American embassy become the first international mission to represent the ideals and intentions of the new 21st Century Democratic Era? The site could hardly be more inauspicious, the blankest slate available in a city of perpetual change. What happens to Grosvenor Square - (Save our Saarinen! The American Embassy in London under threat.') - is another matter altogether.

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Room with a View (via Ample Sanity) a record of hotel rooms: 'The interior shots are always taken first and feature the window with the curtains drawn. The bed is included in the frame whenever possible to give a sense of the space. Ideally, I try to photograph each room immediately upon entry, capturing the layout, furniture and effects precisely as I first see them.'

Art by Matt Bellamy / BuchananSmith has redesigned / illustration by Tommy Perman, via The Flavor / horrific: GetAFreelancer.com, '260 words articles @ $1.5 each' / Wretch, a weblog / plsj, a tumblelog.

1985 Jetsons Layouts, animator John K on creating cartoon layouts in Taipei (via Bradley's Almanac) / Tom Kundig: Prototypes and Moving Parts, a sort film / the dpreview blog / B of the Bang finally limps out of the starting blocks. Flickr view.

Is this the origin of the term 'ground zero'? From the U. S. Strategic Bombing Survey: The Effects of the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (via kottke).

The Big Big Question, a slightly denser version of Ask Me-fi or even Notes and Queries or the New Scientist's Last Word. There's also the original journal Notes and Queries, around since the middle of the nineteenth century.

Microtypography, Designing the new Collins dictionaries: 'There is quite a difference in feeling between Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of 1755 and today’s Collins English Dictionary, but the structure of information and the way in which it is made visible are identical. The two- or three-column grid with its three-letter column headers, the outdented headwords, the cascade of entries and quotes; all these are familiar elements of contemporary dictionaries.'

All about the Cadillac Eldorado Brougham, a history capsule / From Zero to the Moon, a record label and blog / revisiting the 1982 Eurovision Song Contest / architecture in Brazil / Pearman on Venturi, c1987 / now this we like, FourTrack, an iPhone application / Hobnox is a pretty extraordinary site, allowing you to hook up and tweak any number of electronic music making devices.

Life on Google, millions of images from the archives of LIFE magazine, searchable through a Google interface. Disneyland, California, July 1955.

Labels: architecture, design history, linkage

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