International conference 21-22 September 2023
Academia Belgica and the Danish Academy in Rome
Throughout history nation states and many national institutions have built on foreign soil. They did so on several occasions and for several reasons: to ensure political representation, to facilitate cultural exchange, to foster economic relations, to shape a national identity or to cement diplomatic ties. Embassies, legations, consulates, national, cultural and scientific institutions such as the academies in Rome are just some of the examples that fit this description. The process of building such projects is impacted by a multitude of actors across the sending and receiving states and is often challenging. It involves navigating different and less familiar bureaucracies, local building regulations and administrative procedures and a conscious assessment of whether or not to ‘export’ architectural expertise, constructional knowledge or building materials. In the decision-making process, different and sometimes conflicting interests are at play, resulting in buildings that more often than not can be described as hybrid constructs – somewhere in between a national export product and a locally embedded spatial entity. In many cases the final product can be described as a negotiation of the ambitions of the organisational committee of the sending state, and the political, economic, cultural and technical reality of the host country. Although the impact of local actors and mechanisms on these national building projects abroad is immense, they have for too long been neglected.