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Concept
Embassy of the United States, Ottawa
Summary
The Embassy of the United States of America in Ottawa (Ambassade des États-Unis d'Amérique à Ottawa) is the diplomatic mission of the United States of America to Canada. Opened in 1999, the embassy complex is located at 490 Sussex Drive in Ottawa, Ontario.
Before 1999, the diplomatic mission occupied a 1930s-era building at 100 Wellington Street, directly across from Parliament Hill. The Beaux-Arts structure was designed by Cass Gilbert and opened in 1932 as an American legation (full ambassador status was with the Embassy of the United States in London at the time), then as a full embassy after 1943.
The Wellington Street building, a three-storey Indiana limestone structure built in 1930–1931, proved to be too small, however, and embassy employees were spread between eight other Ottawa buildings. Security concerns associated with this distribution necessitated centralization.
The road to a new chancery was a long and difficult one, with attempts made at getting a new structure beginning in the 1960s. Finding an appropriate site and receiving acceptance from both governments proved to be difficult; one proposal to build the embassy in Rockcliffe Park, near the Canada Aviation Museum, was opposed by locals who worried about security threats and congestion. The former chancery is now the Indigenous Peoples Space, dedicated to the indigenous peoples of Canada.
The new embassy is located on what used to be a small hill and parking lot on the western edge of the ByWard Market. Early in Ottawa's history, it had been the site of a number of small homes and businesses, but the land was expropriated by the federal government during the World War I and a temporary office building was built on the site for government workers. The building was torn down after the war, but another temporary structure was built on the site during World War II. This structure survived until 1972, when it was razed and left as a parking lot.
To the west of the embassy is Major's Hill Park and Parliament Hill.
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