Zimbabwe House

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Zimbabwe House

Zimbabwe House at 429 Strand in central London is the Zimbabwean Embassy building in the United Kingdom, previously the country's High Commission until Zimbabwe's departure from the Commonwealth on 7 December 2003 in protest at international criticism of Robert Mugabe's regime's human rights record and its policies.

As Rhodesia House, it served as the High Commission of Southern Rhodesia from 1923 until the Rhodesian UDI on November 11, 1965. Rhodesia was unique in being the only British colony to have a High Commission, as only dominions (and later, independent Commonwealth members) were represented by such legations.

After the UDI, Rhodesia's High Commissioner, Brigadier Andrew Skeen was declared persona non grata by the British Government and ordered to leave the country. However, because of concerns over diplomatic property under international law, Rhodesia House was not seized by the British Government. It simply became a Representative Office with no official diplomatic status, until the colony gained independence as Zimbabwe in 1980.

Business Day newspaper reported in 2002 that the deeds of the building had been given to the Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi as surety for oil supplied to Zimbabwe by the Libyan state oil company Tamoil [1].

[edit] Architecture and sculptures

The building was built by architect Charles Holden in 1907-8 as the headquarters of the British Medical Association and featured a series of sculptures by Jacob Epstein representing the Ages of Man, his first major commission in London. The nakedness of many of these sculptures was initially shocking to Edwardian sensibilities and provoked considerable controversy at the time. The controversy soon died down and the mutilated condition of many of the sculptures has nothing to do with prudish censorship; it was caused in the 1930s when possibly dangerous projecting features were hacked-off after pieces fell from one of the statues.