Site of a diplomatic mission
Ambassaden is the name given to the former U.S. embassy in Oslo. The building was designed by the Finnish-American starchitect Eero Saarinen, and was opened to the public in 1959.
Category→
Art & Culture
Work→
Strategy, Visual identity, Illustration, Animation, Wayfinding, Webpage
Awards→
TBA
Client→
Fredensborg Bolig
Background
The embassy was of course the hot spot for uptating passports and obtain travel documents in the 50s, but to a large extent the embassy also took the role of conveying American culture to the Norwegians. American cartoons, Hollywood films, books and music were all found in the embassy’s library, and it thereby became an important center for pop cultural exchange in the post-war period.
In the early 2000s the embassy was closed to the public, as an extension of the American war on terror.
In 2023, Norwegian property company Fredensborg Bolig reopened the old embassy to the public. The spectacular building was again open for visitiors and Ambassaden is now filled with event spaces, restaurants, coffee and wine bars, offices, gym and a roof top terrace.
Documentation photo
Matylda Awdziejczyk
Architecture photo
Einar Aslaksen
Passport, tickets, wallet, etc.
As a tribute to its former function, Ambassaden’s identity plays on travel documents and collection of memorabilia. Each section of the profile reflects a small archive from an experience - either new or old. This useage also allows Ambassaden to highlight the original images from the building together with the new ones, without feeling backwards. The identity thus becomes a small melting pot between past and future; what the building has been, and what it’s turning into.
Pragmatism meets optimism
The elements in the profile – from the dry usage of Neue Haas Grotesk (1957) and the optimism of the illustrations, to the intense colors that breathes life to Karl Teigen’s photographs from 1959 and the eclectic collection of elements that are both stacked and rotated - do not create a 1:1 ratio of the buildings quality, but rather gives a new layer of storytelling that compliments the building’s zeitgeist, the pragmatics of modernism and Ambassaden’s new role in society.
