Trump Bid to Move ‘Hellhole’ Embassy Sunk by Architectural Icon

Brussels, the European city Donald Trump labeled a ‘Hellhole,’ is picking a fight with the U.S. president in an area close to his heart: real-estate development.

The Belgian capital has taken action to block Washington’s plan to move the U.S. embassy from its current downtown location near Russia’s mission to a bucolic neighborhood adjacent an 11,000-acre forest on the city’s southern outskirts. The point of contention? The new building is too celebrated for what the Americans have planned for it.

The U.S. government — which still doesn’t have an ambassador to either Belgium or the Brussels-based European Union — purchased the site in 2016, with the intention of tearing down the existing building because it doesn’t meet its size requirements or modern environmental standards.

But last year, the regional city government applied to have the building placed on a “safeguard list”, which would prevent any modification or destruction to the four-winged, copper- and glass-covered structure.

The building, which formerly housed the ‘Royale Belge’ insurance company and more recently a local AXA SA outpost, “is part of the flagship heritage of our region,” said Lidia Gervasi, spokeswoman to the regional minister responsible for monuments and sites. “For many people living in Brussels, it’s an icon of modern architecture of the 1960s.”

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And while the regional government has another year to make its formal decision, it intends to confirm the safeguard procedure and place the building on the monument list, Gervasi said.

Brussels is the world’s second-largest seat of diplomatic representations, hosting more than 200 embassies as well as the European institutions and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.