NATO headquarters

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is headquartered in a complex in Haren, part of the City of Brussels municipality of Belgium.[1] The staff at the headquarters is composed of national delegations of NATO member states and includes civilian and military liaison offices and officers or diplomatic missions and diplomats of partner countries, as well as the International Staff (IS) and International Military Staff (IMS) filled from serving members of the armed forces of member states.[2] Non-governmental citizens' groups have also grown up in support of NATO, broadly under the banner of the Atlantic Council/Atlantic Treaty Association movement.

This article is about NATO's political seat. For the military headquarters that commands NATO's operations by means of controlling Allied Command Operations, see Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe.
NATO Headquarters
Aerial view
General information
TypeOffice, conference building
AddressBoulevard Léopold III / Leopold III-laan
Town or cityB-1110 Haren, City of Brussels, Brussels-Capital Region
CountryBelgium
Coordinates50°52′45″N 4°25′30″E
OwnerNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

Premises

1949–1967: London and Paris

When NATO was established in 1949, the organization's headquarters were initially at 13 Belgrave Square in London. On September 15, 1950, at a meeting of the North Atlantic Council in New York City, it was decided to establish the headquarters in Paris, mainly because of the city's central position and its excellent means of communication.

The A-shaped (denoting 'Allies') building in Porte Dauphine, Paris, which originally housed NATO's headquarters, and presently houses Paris Dauphine University

In Paris, NATO initially occupied temporary premises in the Palais de Chaillot in the Trocadéro pending the construction of a definitive building at Porte Dauphine donated by France in April 1954. The Palais Dauphine, also known as the Palais de l'OTAN ("NATO Palace"), was built between 1955 and 1957, according to the plans of the architect Jacques Carlu. The organization moved there in 1959.[3]

Old headquarters

In 1966, NATO was forced to move its headquarters following the French withdrawal from its Military Command Structure.[4][5] In December of that year, the organization took the decision to set up its new headquarters on the territory of the City (municipality) of Brussels. Originally planned on the Heysel/Heizel Plateau, they were "temporarily" built on the Boulevard Léopold III/Leopold III-laan in the former municipality of Haren (merged like Laeken with the City of Brussels), in the north-eastern part of Brussels.[6]

After an international call for tenders, NATO entrusted the construction of these new headquarters, in March 1967, to two Belgian-German-Dutch joint ventures. Work began immediately and was completed twenty-nine weeks later. The site was inaugurated on October 16, 1967.[7] As for the Paris building, it now houses Paris Dauphine University.[3]

New headquarters

Problems in the original building stemmed from its hurried construction in 1967. In 1999, during the Washington Summit, the Heads of State and Government of the allied countries decided to replace the building with headquarters adapted to 21st-century needs.[8] It was then decided to build new headquarters located just opposite the current ones on the site of the old terminals of the Haren 6 airfield.

A new €750 million headquarters building was constructed over the period between 2010 and summer 2016,[9] and was dedicated on 25 May 2017 with a ceremony in the presence of allied Heads of State. Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg addressed the crowd, while then-US President Donald Trump hectored some among the crowd over their failure to live up to the 2% GDP target that was expected of them by their senior partner.[10]

The cost of the new headquarters building escalated to about €1.1 billion[8] or $1.23 billion.[11]

The 250,000 m2 (2,700,000 sq ft) complex was designed by an international design consortium led by the US Firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, including Jo Palma. Both Design and Construction were completed under the auspices of the Belgian Ministry of Defense's Project Management Team led by Colonel Christian LaNotte, Belgian Army Engineers. Project Financing and Requirements definition as well as the Design and Construction Phases were overseen for NATO by its HQ Project Office, led by Donald Hutchins (CAPT, US Navy Civil Engineer Corps, Retired) during the design Phase and Brigadier General Anthony Carruth, (British Army Engineer, Retired) during construction. The New NATO HQ Project is office and home to an international staff of 3,800.[12]

  • Aerial view
    Aerial view
  • Exterior view from the Boulevard Léopold III/Leopold III-laan
    Exterior view from the Boulevard Léopold III/Leopold III-laan
  • Flags of member states waving at the entrance
    Flags of member states waving at the entrance
  • Reconstructed section of the Berlin Wall at the entrance
    Reconstructed section of the Berlin Wall at the entrance
  • Interior view
    Interior view
  • Coat of arms
    Coat of arms

See also

Notes
  1. "NATO homepage". Retrieved 12 March 2006.
  2. "NATO Headquarters". Nato.int. 10 August 2010. Retrieved 22 August 2010.
  3. "Lieux oubliés: l'université Paris-Dauphine, «Sous les cahiers, l'héritage?»". RFI (in French). 2018-08-14. Retrieved 2023-04-08.
  4. Collins 2011, p. 26.
  5. Le Blévennec, François (August 2007). "The Big Move". NATO Review. Archived from the original on September 11, 2007. Retrieved 19 December 2011.
  6. Isby, David C.; Kamps, Charles Jr. (1985). Armies of NATO's Central Front. Jane's Information Group. p. 13. ISBN 9780710603418.
  7. Le siège de l'OTAN fête ses trente ans en Belgique (in French), Revue de l'OTAN, vol. 45, no 5, September–October 1997, p. 34–35
  8. NATO (February 2017). "New NATO HQ" (PDF). www.nato.int. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
  9. Mayo, Virginia (13 November 2014). "NATO shows off its new HQ-to-be". Associated Press. Archived from the original on 8 June 2015. Retrieved 11 December 2014.
  10. "Watch: President Trump's speech at NATO HQ". CBS News. 25 May 2017.
  11. Daniel Halper (25 May 2017). "New NATO Headquarters Cost $1.23 Billion". The Washington Free Beacon. Retrieved 26 May 2017.
  12. "NATO's new headquarters". NATO. 23 May 2017. Retrieved 23 May 2017.

References
  • Collins, Brian J. (2011). Nato: A Guide to the Issues. Santa Barbara, Calif: Praeger. ISBN 978-0-313-35491-5.
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