Carlos Diniz’s drawings of the US embassy in Moscow at Pushkin House

Buildings.

To mark the opening of London’s new US Embassy, London-based Russian cultural centre Pushkin House and Drawing Matter Trust are exhibiting illustrator Carlos Diniz’s drawings of the US Embassy in Moscow, designed by SOM in the early 1970s but completed in 2000.

Ph: Carlos Diniz (1928–2001), Embassy of the United States, Moscow, View A c. 1976. Pen and ink on vellum.

The exhibition is curated by architectural writer Tim Abrahams. SOM’s Charles Edward Bassett “turned regularly to Diniz not simply to illustrate a project but to seduce planners and clients through drawing”, he notes. For the embassy project, his audience was both the US State Department and planners in Moscow.

Images began with hand-drawn perspectives, later moving through ink on vellum where detail was added, and then to large-format paintings for presentation to the client.

Ampetheatre

Phs: Carlos Diniz (1928–2001), ‘Embassy of the United States, Moscow, The Commons’, c. 1976. Courtesy of the estate of Carlos Diniz.

‘Off Location – Drawings for the US Embassy Moscow’
Pushkin House, London WC1A
Until 28 February 2018, 2-5pm, Monday to Saturday
Details: pushkinhouse.org