courtesy of flickr user Umschauen

After 70-some years of displacement, the United States Embassy has returned to its historical location at Pariser Platz 2, a prime piece of real estate nestled immediately next to Berlin's iconic Brandenburg Gate. Dimplomats are as jubilant -- George Bush Sr. arrives on July 4 for the official opening though operations began last week -- as architects are indignant.

Criticism of the highly-fortified building has been swift and almost uniformly disparaging: Der Tagesspiegel writes, "It is a triumph of banality and a barely disguised castle pretending to be a contemporary building." Says the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, "If a building could stand with its arms crossed, it would be this one" while Jacob Heilbrunn at The National Interest notes a "bunker mentality" in the structure, which "resembles something of a fortress that no one would want to try entering."