The Spies Who Went in for Some Warmth: Tough on the outside, a British building opens for espionage

摘要

CHRISTOPHER JONES, AN ARCHITECT in the London office of the San Francisco-based firm Gensler, has something neither Frank Lloyd Wright nor Ludwig Mies van der Rohe ever had: top security clearance from the British government. That's what you get when you design the new headquarters for a spy agency. Last year, Jones's 1.1-million-square-foot Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) opened on a 40-acre site in Cheltenham, England. Though it cost a dignified USD600 million, the building is informally known as "The Donut," owing to its circular form and perhaps also to a recently acquired habit among Britons of foisting culinary nicknames on architecture (witness "The Gherkin").