By Xinhua,
Beijing : US President George W. Bush will formally inaugurate the new embassy building here Friday, the opening day of the Olympics, US envoy to China Clark Randt said Tuesday.
“After more than 15 years of discussions and four and a half years of construction, our magnificent embassy will be officially dedicated by the president,” Randt told reporters.
The complex, built at a cost of $434 million, includes five buildings designed with traditional Chinese elements. All buildings are enclosed in bullet-proof transparent or opaque glass.
“Given the current security environment, it’s expensive to use this amount of glass, because we need to design it in such a way that it resists a car bomb attack and other sorts of hostile actions,” John Holleran, the project architect, said.