What would it look like, a European embassy?

What would it look like, a European embassy?

10.06.2010

Moderated by Tracy Metz, a debate took place at Pulchri Studio about the idea of one European embassy. The evening started with an introduction by Ed Annink, intendant The Hague Design and Government, edition 2010, explaining the subject of Europe and identity using as example the international call Design Den Haag made to designers worldwide to send in their ideas for a new symbol for Europe. This was done not with the aim to replace the current symbol (12 yellow stars on a blue background) but to able creative people to give their vision on the identity of Europe. What is the identity of Europe? How can you portray this? By means of unity or diversity? This turned out the be the main discussion od the evening

Before the discussion about the desirability and the possible visual identity of a European embassy building could take place, three people form the work field gave informative presentations about the concept 'embassy' with examples of European collaboration as it is momentarily: Margriet Leemhuis, ambassador International Cultural Collaboration at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Duc Boorsma, Management Housing Abroad at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ronald Schleurholts, architect and partner of Cepezed in Delft.

After the presentations, two people completed the panel on stage: Rainer Bullhorst (Bullhorst Architecten Stedenbouwers) and Eric Vreedenburgh (Archipelontwerpers) both teachers at the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague. There were different opinions on what a European embassy should look like. Defining the Dutch identity is hard, let alone the European identity. So, the biggest question remains: should a European embassy outside of Europe reflect one European identity? And what is this identity? People working in an embassy to represent their country in the end are more important than the building itself. However an interesting building can be an interesting tool: for example in Berlin it does not take any effort to get people to visiting the embassy, people love going there. Duc Boorsma also had a nice anecdote about the ambassador in Athens; he moved all the objects he collected at his post in Jakarta to decorate his residence in Greece, not making it look typical Dutch..

Tracy Metz closed off the evening with three questions to the audience about the idea of one European embassy:
Is it imaginable? Yes.
Is it achievable? Yes, but phased, like the Scandinavia countries are united in one embassy in Berlin, a starting point could be one building with like-minded countries.
Is it desirable? In the future yes, especially outside of Europe.