This is an architect's story of the design and construction of the U.S. Embassy Chancery and Consulate in Lisbon, Portugal, from 1978 to 1984.

The project was completed 40 years ago.  During the project, Jimmy Carter was president, the Iran embassy hostage crisis began, Mount St. Helens erupted, and disco was king.

So, why tell this story now?

Embassies and consulates are unique buildings with interesting cultures and specialized designs.  They are associated with exotic foreign places and international diplomacy and intrigue.  They represent and serve us, yet they are highly specialized, secretive, and heavily secured, so we generally know little about them.

This is a relatively unknown project, not a high-profile architectural statement by a celebrity architect in a major world capital.  It is a more subtle project, located in an historic European city on a beautiful, pastoral site with significant 17th Century structures.

The project has passed the test of time.  It has met the needs of several generations of State Department staff, evolving over time but remaining basically as designed.  The architecture has aged well, like good Port, and probably more gracefully than many more glamorous embassy projects.  In 2024 the State Department designated our chancery building as a contributing resource to the site’s historic status on OBO’s List of Significant Properties.

This website is not just technical documentation of a building.  It grew into the story of the people and the process of creating the building, before the advent of computers and the internet.  Many original documents had been lost and remaining copies were faded and in poor condition, but the memories were preserved because we recognized at the time that this was probably a once in a lifetime experience.