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| Design sketch of a new U.S. Embassy Beirut |
While the saga of the on-and-off new consulate construction project in Jeddah plays out, I should point out that the U.S. government recently issued a solicitation for the design and construction of a new U.S. Embassy in Beirut. That's always a good thing.
What's not such a good thing is that the solicitation was dated March 28, 2013, which is just three weeks short of thirty years since the Beirut embassy bombing. That incident led to the Inman Commission and to the business of building Fortress Embassies which has gone on ever since. Now, thirty long years later, we might be close to finally building a Fortress in Beirut.
From the solicitation:
This will be a design-bid-build project. The resultant contract shall be fixed price. The estimated construction cost is $526.231 million.
The new Embassy compound will be constructed on U.S. Government-owned property located in Aoukar, approximately 11 km north of Beirut city neat the site of the existing U.S. Embassy compound. The complex of buildings will be in the range of 78,636 gross square meters in area and will include a new Chancery, General Services Office/support buildings, parking structure, TDY lodging facility, Marine Security Guard Quarters (MSGQ), Chief of Missions Residence (CMR), Deputy Chief of Missions Residence (DCMR), Staff Housing, Compound Access Control (CAC) facilities, RSO Annex, Utility Building, Community Center, and vehicular/pedestrian screening facilities. The project site is approximately 17.8 hectare (43 acres) located on a steep hillside in a neighborhood of residential and light commercial uses. The land slopes east to west with a topographic change of approximately 100 meters. This project will be designed and constructed to achieve, as a goal, a LEED Silver rating.
By the way, the sketch I inserted above is not connected to the present solicitation. It is from the very first attempt to build a new U.S. Embassy in Beirut, back in 1957. That project was suspended during the Lebanese Civil War of 1958. History keeps repeating, huh?
26 comments:
The cars gave it away, or is it actually downtown Havana 2013?
Absolutely. I loved those cars!
TSB: How can they turn this guy down for Amb. to France? The Clintons love him, Obama loves him, the Russian mafia loves him, great $$$ raiser with management skills, likes to play cards? gwb
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/ring_bets_off_bam_diplo_pick_folded_tHxkdAt1iQIxc6GWZ7X7jJ
I'm with you; he would have hosted fantastic poker parties in the Ambassador's Residence. But the lightweight backed out even before he was nominated, so there you go. He evidently didn't have the nerve to brazen out a scandal, so he didn't have the right stuff to be an Ambo in the first place. It's a good thing he was found out early.
TSB: If banning seersucker will keep us safer I'm for it. And to help enforce it let's mandate gps tags on anything seersucker! gwb
TSB: I think the Saudi's have funded most of the terror attacks against western countries so I'd like to see more discussion of this in the news: http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-04-29/fbi-report-implicates-saudi-government-911 because it looks to me like we have been providing the bucks for all the terror we have been fighting and maybe we should stop? gwb
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2317493/Saudi-official-Kingdom-warned-United-States-IN-WRITING-Boston-Bomber-Tamerlan-Tsarnaev-2012-rejected-application-entry-visa-visit-Mecca-2011.html
TSB: DHS tells all to The Daily Mail but denies all to the citizenry? gwb
GWB: It seems the Saudis are walking back the claim they proved a specific written warning. However, I'm pretty fascinated by the idea that they denied the Boston Chechen a visa for the Haj. If his visa screening indicted he was an extremist, that's just the sort of thing the Saudis might share with other countries through normal channels.
TSB: I think there is something in that story about a secret WH visit in Dec 2012 by Saudi FM and or Ambassador to discuss what they had on Tammerlan. gwb
Got to looking a little closer at the artists' rendition at the top. That design is a bombers' dream. It even has a ramp to drive a vehicle up underneath for ease of explosive placement. Wouldn't take much to drop that whole thing. OK, what are the cars? I know they're usually stylized , but I'm going for Chrysler on the right and would say Mustang on left, but it's too early.
James,
The cars are probably part of the architect's imagination. I love these artistic renderings of what a building will look like - assuming it gets built. The sketches are always full of happy people, frequently in boats or cars, and lots of lovely landscaping. Sheer utopian fantasy. I've never seen a real world site that looked anywhere close to the image the architect projected.
TSB: You can't eat chicken in China anymore because you might die but the Chi-coms are so innovative! They have some new stuff that tastes just like it!
gwb
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/more-arrests-for-selling-fake-and-spoiled-meat-show-chinas-food-safety-troubles-persist/2013/05/02/3b42506e-b39a-11e2-9fb1-62de9581c946_story.html
An excellent chicken-like product? If I was tempted to eat anything from China before, I am not now. I'm even thinking of cutting out fried rice.
Fried Rice is my all time favorite TSB. Did you notice the Chi-coms have also created a hybrid bird flu in a state lab that is easily transmittable between humans? If that baby ever escapes the lab we will all wish it was 1918. gwb
TSB:
Oh, I've seen a bunch of those renderings and as you say the end product was always a little different. I've found it interesting how the renderings have changed in style and concept over the years. How they were influenced not just by the times, but by who the buyer was (institutional, commercial, industrial, etc).
James - that's a great idea. There ought to be a display of conceptual architect's renderings over time, kind of a utopian alternative world made up of their wish projections.
Seriously, I once did a research paper on U.S. courthouse design from the Early Republic period on, and it was a very good tool for showing how ideas of self-government were manifested differently in the Jeffersonian era versus the Jacksonian, etc.
It was even better for showing how the self-importance of the Federal government ballooned from almost nothing before the New Deal era to overwhelming ever since then. Did you know the U.S. Supreme Court never had a building of its own before the current one was built in the 1930s? (They had to beg for unused spaces in the Capitol building, about 80 different places over the decades.) But their new building was the grandest and most expensive public building ever built up to that day. In one leap, the court went from a deglible physical presence to a grandeous and ostententious landmark building.
GWB - It might just be that 1918 is coming back, with the anarchist assassinations and bombings, the Palmer Raids, the deportation of Bolsheviks, massive labor unrest, and of course the Influenza epidemic. I've thought that since the Boston bombing, with foreign Muslim students playing the part of the Italian anarchists this time around.
All we need now is a new 1920 Wall Street bombing. That event turned the big business community against massive immigration (cheap labor), which set the political stage for the late 1920s immigration restrictions. We had an immigration vacation from then until 1965. I could see that bit of history repeating.
Good points TSB! I'm pretty sure there would be a Wall Street bomb in short order if it weren't for the incredible security effort they have around there. I wouldn't want to be a Eurozone financial regulator about now. gwb
TSB: Benghazi hearing witnesses named: I'm looking for Obama to get 'kinetic' in Syria on Tuesday and put his fingers in his ears again on Benghazi... but that might not work this time. Impeachable? gwb
TSB: Howie Kurtz (reliable sources) apologizes for being completely unreliable, but insists that since he has been unreliable for 30 yrs he has banked enough credibility to keep doing it for CNN. (although he is really sorry and going to try not to) HILARIOUS! gwb (I'll keep watching because he usually feeds all my conspiracy theories.)
" that's a great idea. There ought to be a display of conceptual architect's renderings over time, kind of a utopian alternative world made up of their wish projections"
I've thought of that but being a scourge of the proletariat leaves me little free time.
I have notice in the past countries that started erecting big fancy government buildings usually didn't last long.
TSB: One of the videos of the Isreali Damascus explosions indicated a 15-18 mile stretch of military facilities was totally destroyed. If that is true it could be game over for the Syrian Army. gwb
TSB:http://www.juancole.com/2013/05/happens-parody-cable.html
The onion sums up why I have unplugged my TV until the Benghazi hearing. I wish they had mentioned the 5 commercials that keep running over and over. gwb
TSB: What kind of stuff do you put in the booze in Virginia?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/06/jeffrey-krusinski-arrested_n_3225155.html
I think he was stressed out from the job, decided to have a couple drinks (which were spiked) and had an epiphany that he could go out and prove that his new anti-rape program really works! How was he supposed to know she was kick boxer? gwb
I haven't seen any details yet about that incident, but I agree that alcohol just had to be involved. I'm a little surprised that the victim - assuming she is a Virginia resident - wasn't carrying a gun.
TSB: Somebody cut off Syria's internet. Hmmm? gwb
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-07/syria-traffic-goes-dark-country-disappears-internet
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