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U.S. Embassy - Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

On August 7, 1998, near simultaneous truck bombs exploded at the American Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya. As a result, 224 people died, and around 5,000 were wounded. The State Department's Bureau of Overseas Buildings Operations (OBO) determined that 85% of our nation’s diplomatic facilities did not meet security standards following the attacks. This led to a massive new initiative to build safer facilities and upgrade security at existing posts.

The U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania opened in January 2003. The architect was Hellmuth, Obata, and Kassabaum, Inc.

Artist Commission

Elyn Zimmerman

Elyn Zimmerman’s Mkusanyiko wa Marafiki/Assembly of Friends, FAPE’s second site-specific commission, is a large-scale sculpture that groups six related geometric forms around a granite-rimmed pool. Made of African red granite, the sculptures’ flatness and thinness, as well as their striking silhouettes and outlines, were inspired by shapes used in traditional African art. The sides facing inward have a smooth, polished finish, while those facing outward are textured and inscribed with abstract patterns. The sculpture thus contrasts and reconciles opposed states—smooth and rough, raw and finished, solid and liquid. The work was commissioned by FAPE in 2002 and fabricated by Cold Spring Granite Company in Minnesota. The sculpture was installed by the artist in June 2004.

Gift of the artist with additional funding provided by Cold Spring Granite and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation

“My experience creating a project for the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, was shadowed by the terrorist violence that destroyed the old embassy in 1998, killing a number of people. I wanted to make an artwork that spoke about coming together…not being driven apart. The entry plaza with its small pool was the perfect site to construct my concept of a group of stone forms of African granite positioned around water—this being symbolic of the innumerable village wells and how they are peaceful gathering places. The title in Swahili, Mkusanyiko wa Marafiki, translates as An Assembly of Friends.”
— Elyn Zimmerman

Elyn Zimmerman
Mkusanyiko wa Marafiki/Assembly of Friends
2004
African red granite, six panels, 7 feet, 4 inches x 8 inches

 

Additional Works

Elyn Zimmerman

 

Thanks to a generous gift from the Brown Foundation, Inc., Houston, FAPE was able to acquire the artist’s drawings of the work and donate them to the embassy for display in their lobby.

 
 
 

Video

An Artist at Work: Elyn Zimmerman

 




U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania
686 Old Bagamoyo Road,
Msasani, Dar es Salaam

Visit embassy website