Origins
Symbols
The twelve founding members set up house together for the first time in London in 1950. NATO Headquarters was located at 13, Belgrave Square.
The last meeting to be held in London before the move to Paris on 1 April 1952, which coincided with NATO's third anniversary. It was also on this occasion that Lord Ismay made his maiden speech as the first Secretary General of NATO.
The move to the Palais de Chaillot in Paris involved the biggest furniture removal operation ever undertaken in Britain by air. Ninety tons of office equipment and furniture were flown across the Channel. Normal shipping methods were rejected because the delay would have disrupted the work of the Headquarters.
The reasons for moving to Paris were obvious. It was on the European mainland that the job of unifying Europe had to be accomplished, and it was also there that the United Nations frequently met and made important decisions. Paris itself stood as a symbol of the historic and cultural values that NATO was and is still designed to preserve.
Housing NATO Headquarters in the Palais de Chaillot was supposed to be a temporary solution. Chaillot consisted of offices built to host the 1951 United Nations Sixth Session and were meant to last one year before being dismantled. However, the move to the purpose-built NATO Headquarters at Porte Dauphine did not take place until 1959.
NATO Headquarters at Porte Dauphine was located at the end of Avenue Foch. The building was designed by well-known French architect Jacques Carlu, who also designed the permanent buildings of the Palais de Chaillot, the very ones NATO had occupied beforehand. They were originally constructed for the Paris World Fair in 1937, on the site of the old Trocadéro.
The building at Porte Dauphine was designed in the shape of an ''A'' - ''A'' for Alliance.
The letter ''A'' also allowed the creation of extra office space simply by joining the ends of the two long wings.
Following France's decision to withdraw from NATO's integrated military structure in 1966, the Organization moved to Brussels in October 1967.
The Headquarters was built in just six months—less than 200 days—on the site of the former Evere aerodrome, in the Brussels area.
The site, owned by the Belgian government, was put at NATO's disposal at a symbolic rent of 100 francs per year (the equivalent of approximately three euros per year).
NATO's Secretary General, Manlio Brosio, speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony in March 1967.
The prefabricated buildings were expected to be used for five years, after which time NATO was meant to be transferred to a permanent site on the Heysel plateau, on the northern edge of Brussels, but that never happened.
The Brussels Headquarters hosted the military and the civilian authorities under the same roof for the first time.
Its floor area was 40,000 square metres. The offices were more spacious than at Porte Dauphine and there were 200 more of them – 1300 in total.
As the building had only three floors, it was a long walk from one division to another. Some complained about it; the more optimistic saw it as an excellent way of getting exercise. Here, a view of ''Main Street'', NATO HQ, Brussels – one of the principal corridors.
The move to the new Brussels Headquarters is carefully prepared. Since the office clean-up began in June 2014, 68 tons of paper and office waste were disposed or the equivalent of 10 NATO star sculptures!
NATO staff can almost carry files on foot to the brand-new building, which is directly opposite the current Headquarters.