In architecture the plinth is both simultaneously the problem and the solution to the domain between the street and the tower. At its inception in Greek temple the plinth was used to elevate, separate and create grandeur. The modernist interpretation of the plinth performs all these operations at the scale of the city block in an effort to solve the need for parking and enable the production of the tower. The plinth has never been the ground but the scale modernist plinth establishes a new ground on top of what has become a volume.
Working in the vein of the Yokohama port terminal by FOA and the Taipei Pop Music center by Reiser + Umemoto that began to use the plinth as a means of activation and connection this project furthers that inquiry into the articulation of the plinth as an activated volume and new ground plane that is part of the urban fabric. However the inherent symbolic and physical separation of the plinth that sets it up as a place that is different from where you just left cannot be ignored and can be leveraged.
Since the U.S. Department of States announcement of a new embassy in Mexico City and the foregrounding of embassy's overseas with the incidents in Cairo and Benghazi last September, leveraging the plinths dualistic nature as something that separates and desires to connect, the embassy is the perfect place to test the plinth. This project is situated on the new U.S. Embassy site in Mexico City in a diverse neighborhood with residential, commercial, retail, cultural and industrial sites along its perimeter. The plinth will negotiate the need for different levels of security and protection as well as openness to the people and country that surround it.
