Nine Elms landmark will open in January
The first pictures inside Kieran Timberlake’s new US embassy in London have been released.
US ambassador Woody Johnson tweeted pictures from inside the fortified cube which stands behind its own moat at Nine Elms.
He also revealed the embassy - which was supposed to open this summer - will now open on January 16.
President Trump is expected to open it - whether or not it is as part of an official state visit to the UK.
Timberlake was picked in 2010 from a shortlist featuring Morphosis, Richard Meier and Pei Cobb Freed & Partners.
His design, with distinctive ETFE kites on the facades to deal with solar gain, was picked for the way it balanced high security with a trasnparent, crystalline appearance.
Once all the staff have moved out of the current US embassy in Grosvenor Square, work can begin on David Chipperfield’s plans to convert Eero Saarinen’s grade II-listed building into a 137-bed hotel.
The plans for Qatari Diar were approved a year ago by Westminster council.
The council gave the go-ahead for the redevelopment despite Westminster’s director of planning agreeing with the objections raised by the Twentieth Century Society in his report that some of the changes would be harmful to the special architectural interest of the building.
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