America At Home: The Architecture And Politics Of The US Embassy In Dublin

It was one of the last avant-garde results from a strategic building programme the US government undertook during the Cold War. In commissioning leading architects to design decidedly modern, open, welcoming buildings, America exported its vision of open and free democracy to the rest of the world.

The story behind the building is fascinating. It faced stiff critical and political opposition during the design process, a deadlock that was eventually broken by the personal intervention of President John F. Kennedy. The building used cutting-edge concrete technology where its 1,600 components were flat packed on a barge and shipped to Dublin. It was American design, fabricated in part in Holland, and assembled in Ireland.

This book tells the story of the figures behind this unique building and the ideas it espoused. It features newly released archive photography of the building’s construction, original hand drawings by the architect and newly commissioned illustrations of the building. The book features an absorbing foreword by acclaimed author Shane O’Toole, on his personal remembrances of John M. Johansen.

A series of vignettes dispersed throughout the book attempt to capture moments of time, various characters encountering the building: the architect, the US President, the Irish President, a Dutch fabricator, a construction worker. This promotes the idea that the life and experience of a civic building is not centred on any one individual, but rather a constellation of interactions over time, it is a character in all our lives.