art of 59 artists from the United States, is organized as two "bars" of office space, joined by an atrium in the center, visible as the tall structure seen from the outside. The design of the building took several years. The architect spoke about the challenge presented by the design project in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. It forced him, he said, to move the atrium to the centre of the building, and the glass wall facing Sussex Drive, which had been intended as a fully transparent curtain wall, would now disguise a concrete blast wall with smaller windows punctuating the concrete. Interior furnishings in the atrium area feature "Niagara blue" a colour chosen to "reflect the shared experience, close relationship and free trade association between the United States and Canada — Niagara blue because of the shared beauty of Niagara Falls." The embassy was dedicated by President Bill Clinton on October 8, 1999, the first time in American history that a president had personally dedicated a new embassy. The building was included amongst other architecturally interesting and historically significant buildings in Doors Open Ottawa, held on June 2 and 3, 2012. Controversy Local architects and citizens complained that the structure overshadowed the historic market and suggested that it looked like a battleship, or worried about the danger posed to local businesses by potential terrorist attacks against the embassy. These complaints were aggravated after the September 11 attacks, when a number of roads around the embassy were blocked, congesting traffic and hurting businesses. The immediately adjacent lane on Sussex Drive was permanently closed. Security concerns voiced by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security before the completion of construction were overruled by its parent agency, the U.S. Department of State. In the aftermath of the 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa, there was serious consideration given at the time about whether the new U.S. Embassy should be completed, especially considering the large amount of glass on one side of the new Chancery that faced a public street. The cost of not finishing and moving into the new Chancery, in terms of money and political capital, could not be overcome. See also List of ambassadors of the United States to Canada Lornado – residence of the U.S. Ambassador to Canada Embassy of Canada, Washington, D.C. References External links American Citizen Services in Canada United States Ottawa Canada–United States relations