Embassy of the United States, Havana  The Embassy of the United States of America in Havana is the United States of America's diplomatic mission in Cuba. On January 3, 1961, US President Dwight D. Eisenhower severed relations following the Cuban Revolution of the 1950s. In 1977, President Jimmy Carter and President Fidel Castro signed an Interests Sections Agreement that permitted each government to operate out of its former embassy in Havana and Washington D.C., which were called Interests Sections; they were prohibited from flying their respective flags. Cuban President Raúl Castro and US President Barack Obama restored full diplomatic connections on July 20, 2015. The building housed the United States Interests Section in Havana between 1977 and 2015, which operated under the auspices of the Swiss Embassy (acting as protecting power). On July 1, 2015 it was announced that with the resumption of diplomatic ties, the building resumed its role as the U.S. Embassy in Cuba on July 20, 2015. After the allegations of sonic attacks surfaced in 2017, United States withdrew most of the personnel from the embassy, so by July 2018 only 10 American diplomats were left to maintain the diplomatic service. The embassy is led by Chargé d'affaires "ad interim" Ambassador Mara Tekach. The current embassy was designed in the Modernist—Brutalist style by the architectural firm Harrison & Abramovitz. It is a long and six-story concrete and glass building, completed in 1953. The gardens were designed by Californian landscape architect Thomas Dolliver Church. The contractor for the building was Jaime Alberto Mitrani, PE, also a professor of civil engineering at the University of Havana. The embassy complex is located directly on the Malecón and the José Martí Anti-Imperialist Platform, in proximity to the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs. After the U.S. diplomatic mission became defunct in 1961, the building was not used by American personnel until the opening of the interests section on September 1, 1977. In 1963, Prime Minister of Cuba Fidel Castro ordered the confiscation of the complex, but action was never taken by the Cuban government, though it still claimed right to the property in 2012. During the period that the complex served as an interests section, the U.S. was represented by Switzerland, and the Swiss maintained both the embassy complex and its effects. Renovations were completed on the complex in 1997. The building was upgraded from an interests section and returned to its original role as the United States Embassy in Cuba, on July 20, 2015.