'How should Europe be represented in the world?' This project proposes an Embassy for the European Community in Washington D.C. The design process seeks to reconcile several critical oppositions imbedded within the task. The project develops a new embassy programme which extends the notion of cultural exchange, through diplomacy, into the public realm. It integrates a tectonic strategy which provides necessary protection for building inhabitants, while maintaining a sense of openess. In addition, this project conceives of a system within which individual and collective identities may coexist.