Viking Magazine - September 2021 - 38

Ambassador's Insights
The Embassy Returns Home
BY ANNIKEN KRUTNES
very morning for the past year
or so I've been serenaded by
hard-hatted men and women in the
garden outside my living room, my
home life moving to the rhythms
of their hammering and sawing.
The construction workers have
been beautifying and revamping
the embassy chancery building and
garden, right next to the ambassador's
residence, to raise them to the
standards of the 21st century. At long
last, their hard work-and the work of
so many others-is complete, and it's
time for the embassy to return from its
temporary quarters to the place it has
called home for decades.
Norway established its fi rst embassy
E
As the city began to extend
Massachusetts northward, in 1929
Minister Halvard Bachke purchased
a lot at Massachusetts Ave. and the
future 34th St. As the photo shows,
around that time, this was little more
than the meeting point for two dirt
roads.
in Washington, D.C., on October
31, 1905-the year Norway gained
independence from Sweden.
That fi rst embassy building was at the
corner of Massachusetts Ave. and S St.
NW. That's now prime real estate, but
at the time it wasn't much of anything.
The building served as both the
The current ambassador's residence,
at 3401 Massachusetts Ave., would be
built on that lot in 1930 by architect/
builder John Whelan and opened on
April 27, 1931. It served as both the
embassy's chancery and ambassador's
residence until July 1941, when the
Norwegian government converted
the one-story building next door into
a standalone chancery to handle the
additional staff during the war. At
the time, the embassy had roughly 20
employees.
In the 1950s, two neighboring lots
were purchased. One became the offi ce
of the Washington Defense Attaché
and the chancery was moved into the
other.
The systems were on their last legs, and
the staff had increased to more than 50,
making it Norway's largest embassy.
Most importantly, the building was
The current ambassador's residence at
3401 Massachusetts Ave. as it looked
shortly after completion in 1931.
unsuited for use as a modern embassy,
with inadequate meeting space, no
space for public events or exhibitions,
and an underused garden.
A modern chancery serves many
functions. For embassy employees, it's
a workplace. For Norwegian citizens
in the United States, it's a place to go to
be scanned for passports, for marriage
certifi cates, for emergency passports,
for voting. It's also a meeting space and
an event space.
Massachusetts Ave. near 34th St., looking west, 1911.
embassy and the ambassador's
residence, and was only the second
embassy to be built on what would
eventually become known as Embassy
Row.
38 VIKING SEPTEMBER 2021
sonsofnorway.com
In 1977, all but the ambassador's
residence was torn down, and in 1978
the new chancery opened.
By the late 2010s, that chancery
building had begun to show its age.
The renovations to the chancery were
initiated and overseen by Statsbygg,
the Norwegian Directorate of Public
Construction and Property, which
manages central parts of the real
estate portfolio of the Government
of Norway, including all Norwegian
embassy buildings worldwide.
Fentress Architects, an international
design fi rm known for large-scale
public architecture such as airports,
museums and university buildings,
has outfi tted the new garden room
PHOTOS COURTESY NORWEGIAN EMBASSY
http://www.sonsofnorway.com
Viking Magazine - September 2021

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