In 2023, we joined the all-Ireland group of female entrepreneurs, AwakenHub, at the Irish consulate in New York City; celebrated a coronation on Embassy Row, provided tips for getting the most out of the EU Open House; and more.
We also hosted an evening on the history of the tango at the National Press Club; organized outings to diplomatic galleries and art exhibits; welcomed new ambassadors and staff to Washington; offered six informal networking opportunities for embassy staff over tacos; helped the Embassy of Rwanda organize its first media trip; raised funds for the Turkish and Syrian earthquake relief funds; relaunched the Diplomatica website with more features; and became an affiliate of Bookshop.org, ensuring our research and reading recommendations help support independent bookstores.
If you've missed a feature, or just want to remember a favorite, here were our top stories of 2023.
We're compiling our editorial calendar for next year, so if there's something you'd like to see, or partner on, let us know! Thank you for being part of Diplomatica's journey in 2023.
Dutch Ambassador's Residence
"There are flowers," writes Michael Pollan, "and then there are flowers: flowers, I mean, around which whole cultures have sprung up, flowers, with an empire's worth of history behind them, flowers whose form and color and scent, whose very genes carry reflections of people's ideas and desires through time like great books."
Tulips had already been on the Dutch landscape for more than 200 years when the U.S. and the Netherlands formally established diplomatic ties in 1782. However, the country once known as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands had served a critical role in the American Revolutionary War a few years earlier, when, in 1779, the Continental Congress commissioned Henry Laurens as Minister to the Netherlands to negotiate a treaty between the newly independent United States and the Republic of the Netherlands. Laurens was captured by the British Navy en route to Europe with a draft of the proposal in hand; shortly after, the British declared war on the Netherlands.
Explore the Dutch Ambassador's Residence, and the annual tulip extravaganza it hosts, in Kalorama's Dutch Beauty Riot, one of our most-read features of 2023.
The Pentagon
If you're ever lost in the Pentagon, don't try to find your way out; look for a way in.
Inside the famous five-sided facade there is a courtyard. It too, is five-sided, and nestled within that five-sided courtyard of the five-sided building lies another five-sided building, a Matryoshka doll of buildings.
"Inside the Pentagon's courtyard is a building that, during the Cold War, the Russians believed was a place of great importance," a Pentagon official told me. "Their surveillance photos showed people gathering there every day and they suspected it was a place where the US kept its top secrets." Lore has it the Russians assumed that targeting it would level the entire operation.Explore the history of The Pentagon, and the secret it holds, in The Pentagon's Matryoshka.
Mexican Cultural Institute
The building on 16th Street that serves as the Mexican Cultural Institute is part of a cluster of current and former diplomatic properties that still serves foreign governments, and local residents. Like its neighbor, the Former Residence of the Ambassadors of Spain, the Mexican Cultural Institute previously served as the country's embassy, and its ambassador's residence.
When it was built in 1910, however, none of this was the intended goal of the home.
It was common practice at the turn of the last century, even more so than it still is in some circles today, to chronicle in great detail the buying and selling of property among society's elites. So when the land at 2829 16th Street was purchased from Mary Foote Henderson, who had already established that the many plots of land she owned would only be sold to those she deemed suitable, the neighbors were all atwitter. This home, assembled on patchworked lots purchased from several owners, was among the first such buildings of Henderson's plans. But when it was discovered that the purchase had been made by a trust appointed by a secret owner, uncovering that new owner's identity was all the rage.Read The Mysterious Mansion with History Written on Its Walls.
Embassy of Pakistan
Ahead of the sale of their former embassy on R Street, the Embassy of Pakistan invited Diplomatica to tour it historic properties in Dupont, including the sprawling 50-room Francis B. Moran mansion on Embassy Row, rumored to have been won in a chess match.Purchased in 1950, the mansion at 2315 Massachusetts Avenue had been the home of Lord and Lady Reading, the British High Commissioner; the headquarters for the Chinese delegation to the international conference on the limitation of armament; the home of the Turkish Ambassador, (now officially just around Sheridan Circle), and the site of the first Iranian embassy, then known as Persia. Prior to that, it had served as a social hub of Washington, and the headquarters of the 1928 Hoover campaign.
Embassy of Lithuania
For more than one hundred years, a tower has stood watch over 16th street.
Affectionately named the “birdhouse” by the building’s residents, the tower room tops the Embassy of Lithuania at 2622 16th Street. Once part of a two-building structure, the embassy now stands alone, sandwiched between the Embassy of Cuba, and a large apartment complex that stands in the place of the original building and now dwarfs one of the longest-serving diplomatic properties in Washington.
“It used to have a view of the White House,” Marijus Petrušonis, the embassy’s political counselor tells me with a shrug, as if to say, things change. What can you do?
That embassies change – their diplomats, their buildings, their country’s diplomat status – is one of the constants in Washington. But the Embassy of Lithuania has arguably seen more change than most.
And more...
Explore (and replicate!) a unique afternoon at the Embassy of Philippines; get an update on the Embassy of Switzerland's rewilding initiative; indulge in gorgeous ceramics from the Embassy of Austria; and revel in holiday traditions from around the world.
See these and all of our features and news on Diplomatica Global.
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