Berlin embassy to show "warmer, fuzzier" U.S

By Noah Barkin

BERLIN (Reuters) - A new U.S. embassy that sits next to the Brandenburg Gate in central Berlin will show off America's "warmer, friendlier, fuzzier" side, U.S. Ambassador William R. Timken said on Thursday.

Designed by California architects Moore Ruble Yudell at a cost of $130 million, the embassy is due to open this spring and will be celebrated with two days of festivities in the Pariser Platz square starting on July 4.

Its planning was dogged by controversy as U.S. officials demanded Berlin shift two major streets in the city centre away from the embassy for security. They reached a compromise in 2000 and construction began just over three years ago.

Unlike many other U.S. embassies around the world, the new building in Berlin does not sit behind tall barricades but is relatively exposed on one of the German capital's most visited squares -- a symbol, Timken said, of the close German-American relationship.

"We could have built an embassy out in the woods at half the cost and twice the security," Timken told reporters. "We are here as a symbol of our desire to be a partner to Germany ... It's going to be a warmer, friendlier, fuzzier America."

Relations between the United States and Germany grew more strained than at any time since World War Two when former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder came out strongly against the U.S.-led war in Iraq.

But his successor Angela Merkel has worked hard to repair ties and German officials are hoping to lure U.S. President George W. Bush to Berlin for the grand opening of the embassy on U.S. Independence Day.

The embassy is across the street from Berlin's new Holocaust memorial and within metres of where the Berlin Wall once stood. The French and British embassies are also around Pariser Platz, a former border zone between East and West Berlin.