Designed by Tony Fretton Architects, Set in its own grounds facing onto Ulica Kawalerii on one side and a park on the other in an area of the city devoted to embassies, the British Embassy in Warsaw has a serene and formal quality. Its long form is centralized by an attic in an elementally neo-classical way and underlined by the longer figures of the walls and railings enclosing the site. The building is explicit in its conservation of energy; its glass elevations function as the outer skin of a double façade, which provides substantial thermal insulation in winter and relieves heat in the summer. The outer layer, delineated by pale bronze aluminum mullions and mirror glass, reflects the sky and trees of the surrounding gardens. Behind this is a more substantial façade of windows set between solid piers and spandrels in a modulated composition of a similar palette. The pale polychromy of this arrangement is a distant relative of the painted stucco buildings of the school of Schinkel, which can be seen across Europe from the Hague to Oslo and here in Warsaw.
One enters the Embassy grounds through a Gate House on Ul. Kawalerii. A carriageway leads to a stone clad porte cochère at the centre of the façade. The ground floor is reserved for public activities and features a large space for exhibition and events, and a café that opens onto the garden. Occupying the remainder of the ground floor is the area for Consular Section and UK Border Agency complete with a public wait...