United States Consulate General, Guangzhou

 

United States Consulate General, Guangzhou

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill
Guangzhou, China

Diplomatic Position: In the midst of the visual hubbub of China's third-largest city, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill creates an understated ensemble of buildings for the U.S. Consulate General.
By Clare Jacobson

The U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou, China, makes only the quietest of claims within the city's noisy new business district. Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), its seven low-rise buildings—offices, screening facilities, a warehouse, and a residence for Marines—dot a 7.4-acre site in the burgeoning Pearl River New Town. Zaha Hadid's opera house lies catercorner to it, and Wilkinson Eyre's supertall IFC Guangzhou and KPF's soon-to-be-supertaller CTF Guangzhou are close by. China's tallest structure, the Canton Tower, for telecommunications equipment, looms across the river. The consulate—built with a warm palette of stone, wood, glass, and weathering steel—is, by comparison, subdued.

 

Much of the complex's humility has to do with its scale. With its tallest buildings a mere four stories—the maximum allowed for the consulate by Chinese authorities —it is dwarfed by the surroundings. Adding to this modesty is its parklike atmosphere. Though setbacks for security are part of the reason for all the green space, the effect, ironically, is of an open enclave landscaped with lush indigenous plants. “We are an oasis in the middle of a bustling central business district,” says Consul General Jennifer Zimdahl Galt. The greening, along with similarly low-key sustainability measures, helped the project achieve LEED Silver certification.

 

 he complex replaces five leased spaces scattered throughout Guangzhou, allowing the consulate to make a unified statement within the city. The general public, diplomats, and staff each enter the site at three dedicated one-story security screening facilities, each clad in local granite and topped with a green roof. The pavilion at the site's eastern edge serves as the public entrance and as the consulate's front door, says San Francisco–based Craig Hartman, SOM design partner for the Guangzhou project and for the firm's U.S. Embassy in Beijing, completed in 2008.

The main building on the lot is the Consulate Building. Granite-clad concrete wraps four stories in an inverted U, forming both roof and facade. Rounded roof corners allow Guangzhou's heavy rains to roll down into the landscape. Horizontal windows dot the stone facade. Some are positioned low to provide views for workers sitting at their desks. Others are set high to help bring light deep into the interior.

The public enters the building through the double-story Lincoln Hall, which has louverlike teak slats hung from its walls and ceiling. Daylight penetrates through them and also through deep-set windows. Several types of local stone stripe the floor, and an installation by video artist Jennifer Steinkamp brightens one wall.

The hall is a lively place, hosting up to 2,500 consular visits each day and as many as 200 people for evening lectures and other events. Applicants for non-immigrant visas wait here. Visitors for other services—the Guangzhou Consulate is the only place in China that processes adoptions and immigrant visas—take a glass elevator to more typical upper-floor offices. It seems generous—in a friendly American kind of way—that the consulate offers its grandest space to its Chinese guests.

A sense of approachability pervades the project. While the concrete wall on the north perimeter does not exactly say, “Come on in!” the public eastern entrance is more inviting. It has an openwork fence of weathering steel (Hartman refers to it as a “picket fence”), and its security-screening facility incorporates a glass wall so that passersby can see the Consulate Building. Galt says this transparency sends a “powerful message about . . . how we are open and welcoming.”

The U.S. has had a varying history with its buildings abroad. The modern designs of the 1950s and '60s, by some of America's leading architects, were meant to symbolize democracy through their openness. A security-led approach prevailed in the 1970s and '80s. The Standard Embassy Design program, using stock designs, began in 1999. In 2010, the Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) announced the Excellence in Diplomatic Facilities program, which put quality architecture back in the mix. Projects by Morphosis for Beirut and Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects for Mexico City are under way. “Representing the U.S. is not just about representing U.S. policy,” says Lydia Muniz, OBO's director. “It's about representing American ingenuity and creativity.”

Of all the responsibilities—including functionality, security, and sustainability—that the U.S. Consulate General in Guangzhou bears on its rounded shoulders, the one most difficult to assess is how well it conveys a national identity. There is no iconic feature such as the grand colonnades of so many classic U.S. embassies (and even SOM's Beijing Embassy) to suggest its civic purpose. In fact, this consulate is so unobtrusive it could be mistaken for a school. Hartman admits that the subtlety of the design is in part a reflection of his personal ethos. But he also suggests that the building is intentionally self-deprecating. “When we build representations of our values, the architecture should reflect a certain level of modesty,” he says. “It shouldn't be a spectacle.” This attitude toward its Guangzhou neighbors is understandable, even laudable. But to represent the diversity of America, being benign yet bold might be better. Still, opting for quiet amid the noise of Guangzhou may be the boldest statement of all.

Size: 150,000 square feet

Cost: $256 million

Completion date: June 2013

Architect:
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP
One Front Street, Suite 2400
San Francisco, California 94111
Tel: 415-981-1555

 

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