WASHINGTON: Having decided to vacate the aging and stodgy US Embassy in London, the State Department is looking upmarket and modern for a firm to design the nation’s new diplomatic post in the British capital. The department said Friday it has selected nine prominent American architectural firms, including at least two whose principals have won the prestigious Pritzker Architecture Prize, to submit concepts for the new embassy building that will be built south of the River Thames in an area far less fashionable than tony Grosvenor Square where the mission now is. The State Department, particularly since the imposition of new security rules after the 1998 bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, has often been criticized for commissioning bland, fortress-like buildings to serve as offices for diplomats abroad.

But the nine companies chosen to compete on the London project are known for modernist and innovative designs. They were selected from 37 firms that entered the first round of competition that opened in October when the decision to leave Grosvenor Square was announced. They will produce conceptual drawings that will be judged by a jury that will select four or five to produce formal designs, the department said. Among the best-known firms of those making the first cut are New York-based Richard Meier and Partners, whose founder won the Pritzker Prize in 1984, and Santa Monica, Calif.-based Morphosis Architects, whose co-founder Thom Mayne won the Pritzker in 2005. One member of the jury, noted British architect Richard Rogers, won the Pritzker Prize in 2007.