스크랩 주미 영국대사관 관저의 품격

[世岩 최삼송]

주미 영국대사관 관저의 품격.

규모가 큰 대사관은 대사관과 따로 대사가족이 거주하는 관저를 갖고있다. 서울에도 미국,일본
대사관은 대사관저가 따로 있고, 영국, 중국,인 도네시아, 프랑스대사관등 많은 대사관은  별개
의 대사관저가 대사관 영내에 따로 있어, 대사가족의 프라이버시를 최대 보장하려 애쓰고 있다.
그건 그렇고  주미 영국대사관은   미국과의 오랜 애증의 관계,  즉    식민지에서 독립한 1776년
이후, 지금까지  영국의 많은 식민지들이  그러하듯, 영국에게 제일 가까운 나라는    이웃나라
아일랜드도 아니고 바다건너 미국이다. 전쟁이 일어나면 포클랜드전쟁에선 미국이 인공위성으로
아르헨티나 군의 배치를 알려주고,  중동에서나 아프카니스탄에서 미국이 전쟁을 하면 영국이
함께 파병을 한다.  서로 잘알고 서로를 필요로 하고 최고위층은 자주 전화한다. 미국 워싱톤엔
178개국의 대사관이  자리잡고 있다...    그중에서 영국은 그 옛날의 식민지로 구성된      the

Common wealth  16개국을 거느리는 외교가의 좌장이다.

80년전 1937년에 완성된 이건물은 꾸준하고 강력한 양국관계를 반영하는 감동적인   표상이다.  
워낙 관저가 크다보니, "아이구 이렇게 큰 땅에 대사관 관저가~~~  좀 짤라서 팔지 라고 하는
사람도 많다".   부지가격은  $31,308,480.  미국 대통령의 백악관보다도 더 큰듯하다  1928년에
Edwin Lutyens경이  설계하였다   .  건물이 워낙 크고 아름답다보니, 워싱톤에서 유명한 파티
장소가 되고,미국대통령이   임기중 반드시 초청되는 그런 품격을 가진, 미국의 역사적 사적지
로 지정된 곳이다.... 바로 옆 가까운 곳에 미국 부대통령의 관저가 있다.

주미 영국대사관 관저

More than 80 years after it was completed as a statement of British prestige, the UK ambassador's residence in Washington still plays important role on diplomatic stage.

The full façade of the residence. Edwin Lutyens designed it to face southwards towards the garden rather than eastwards towards the street. 

     

By Peter Foster, Washington

It remains one of the most desirable postings on the diplomatic circuit: a Queen Anne-style English country pile overlooking Washington DC that reflected Imperial Britain’s own sense of her standing in the world when it was completed more than 80 years ago.

“It was designed to make an impression,” says Sir Peter Westmacott, the current British ambassador sitting on the terrace at 3100 Massachusetts Avenue, “it was a brave and deliberate statement about Britain’s relationship with America.”

And even today, as Britain fights to keep its place in a changing world, the ambassador believes that Sir Edwin Lutyens’s imposing masterpiece still does a job for its country.

“It was designed as an important symbol of the relationship back in the 1920s,” he adds, “And it remains an important symbol.

“It’s no accident that even now no one is saying ‘oh my God, the place is too big, let’s sell it off’. Of course, the pay-back today is that we make it work hard for us, promoting Britain, its industries and ideas.”

            

 _{The Terrace from above. The black areas in these patterns were created through stacking sheets of slate on edge.}

In era of reduced circumstances, that means not just holding diplomatic soirees and hosting visiting dignitaries, but using the grounds and reception room to promote everything from Aston Martin cars, to financial services products and cultural exports like Shakespeare and the Downton Abbey television series.

To promote the building, Sir Peter, along with his Washington-born wife, Susie Nemazee Westmacott, has commissioned a sumptuously-illustrated history of the residence.

“It is simply the greatest ambassadorial residence of any country in any capital city,” says Anthony Seldon, the official Downing Street historian who wrote the text for the book, as he addresses an audience in its yellow drawing room. "It is nothing less than a three–dimensional piece of art.”

Over the years, the residence – a favoured place of both Sir Winston Churchill and Margaret Thatcher - has frequently added some sparkle to the sometimes dour Washington social scene.

From the arrival of George VI in the summer of 1939 for a garden party that caused a near-riot for tickets, to a visit from the Beatles in February 1964 and Margaret Thatcher’s hosting a dinner for the newly elected Ronald Reagan in 1981, the residence has witnessed moments of history.

More recently, Hillary Clinton’s last dinner as US secretary of state took place at the residence, a plaudit that the embassy believes shows that the so-called special relationship is not yet dead.

That Beatles visit, when the band came to Washington to play their first live show in America and attended a champagne reception at the Embassy given in their honour, remains a highlight whose 50th anniversary was marked by another party earlier this year.

Mr Seldon relates that the ambassador at the time, Sir David Ormsby Gore, “did his best to bridge the two worlds” of pop and politics, even managing to raise a laugh when Ringo Starr looked him up and down and said, “So, what do you do?”

In a foreword to the book entitled The Architecture of Diplomacy, Prince Charles, who has stayed at the residence many times, described the building as a “magnificent symbol of and a practical manifestation of the special relationship” which he hopes will inspire future generations.

Commissioned after the First World War, Lutyens’s building replaced Britain’s original embassy on Connecticut Avenue which had been completed in 1876 and which Britain’s diplomats had been complaining bitterly since the early 1900s was falling down around their ears.

Dr Seldon writes of how in 1907 the British ambassador, James Bryce, wrote furiously to London about the impossibility of working at the crumbling embassy.

“A double of electric cars [trams] now runs in front of the house,” Bryce fumed, “and the noise is so great that when the windows of the front drawing room are open those in the these rooms can hardly hear themselves speak.”

His representations were in vain and it was not until the 1920s that funds were found to begin construction began on Lutyens’s grand building.

Even so, it still bears the hallmarks of Foreign Office penny-pinching complained of by generations of British diplomats.

In the grand ballroom, for example, the corniced ceiling seems to be supported by columns of richly veined Sienna marble but – as a rap of the knuckles demonstrates - they are in fact fakes, made from metal that rings hollow when struck.

Similarly the geometrically patterned white and black floors are laid not with black Belgian marble as Lutyens desired, but much cheaper tiles of slate.

Even the greenhouses that hold the embassy’s stunning orchid collection have their economic rationale, says the well-briefed head gardener, arguing that the long-lived orchids are much more economical in the long run for the hallways and bedrooms, than using cut flowers.

“That’s the deal in the modern world,” concludes Sir Peter, “if you’re going to have a magnificent asset like this, it has to earn its keep.”

워싱톤 주재 영국대사관

[TJ-KIM]

우리나라 청와대도 동양풍으로 잘 가꿔진 요지지여...