John M Johansen’s recognisable building, which opened in 1964 is among city’s finest modernist architecture
US embassy: the iconic Dublin building, designed by John M Johansen, when it opened, in May 1964. Photograph courtesy of Norman McGrathembassy recently described its wonderful building in Ballsbridge as an architectural icon. And for once the profligately overused I-word is entirely justified, because this instantly recognisable cylindrical drum at the apex of Elgin Road and Pembroke Road is right up in the first rank of 20th-century modernist architecture in Dublin.
Johansen, a Harvard graduate who had won the embassy commission in 1956, toyed with different forms for the challenging triangular site previously occupied by a pair of grand Victorian houses before finally settling on a circular shape that “turns its back on no one”, after being inspired by ancient ring forts and Martello towers.
Johansen once said the task of architects is to “seize hold of new technologies, judiciously apply them to buildings, delight in the symbolic potential, and endow them with poetic expression” – and he certainly realised those ideals in Ballsbridge, producing “a pioneering work of postwar modern architecture”, as O’Toole has described it.
Wedge-shaped offices are arranged along open corridors encircling a top-lit atrium rising 15 metres. Known by embassy staff as the rotunda, this space served as a reception area and was frequently used for social functions before security became an overriding concern; thousands queued for a moon-rock exhibition there in 1970.
O’Toole’s verdict: “Although radically innovative in conception and design, John M Johansen’s US embassy in Dublin has withstood the test of time, coming to symbolise John F Kennedy’s ‘Camelot’ and the golden age of mid-century American architecture, when the example of the United States ruled the hearts and minds of most of the western world”.featuring copies of Johansen’s extraordinarily intricate drawings of the building and contemporary photographs by Norman McGrath.
Other alterations included installing a pair of curved ramps to replace the two original “drawbridges” and a new staff entrance at basement level. The Baldoyle-based concrete specialist Fleeton Watson also carried out undetectable repairs to parts of the building’s facade, and a silver-blue film was applied to the windows to provide more privacy.. But this couldn’t be done because of the building’s diplomatic status – now set to come to an end when the embassy relocates.
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