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Authors & Artists Online Series: Chad Floyd
September 29, 2020 @ 6:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Authors & Artists Online Series: Chad Floyd
SS United States: Hallmark of Modern Design
Presented online via Zoom
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
6:00 pm
$5.00 Non-Members
Members Free
Members Click Here to Register
In an illustrated lecture, Centerbrook Architects Partner Chad Floyd, FAIA, tells the story of the liner SS United States, the fastest ocean liner ever built.
Floyd’s lecture describes a remarkable collaboration between the ship’s naval architect, William Francis Gibbs, and its interior designer, Dorothy Marckwald. Launched in 1951, the “Big U” was the most modern, graceful, and powerful ship in the world, breaking the eastbound speed record on her maiden voyage. With a weight-saving aluminum superstructure, “America’s Flagship,” as she came to be known, ushered in a new aesthetic that married performance to glamour and influenced millions of Americans to embrace Mid-Century design.
Floyd’s design credits include cultural, academic, and civic projects, among them the new Thompson Exhibition Center at Mystic Seaport Museum; Krieble Gallery at the Florence Griswold Museum; the Addison Gallery of American Art; Palmer Events Center in Austin, Texas; the 9/11 Liberty Memorial in Virginia; and the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. Currently he is at work on the Connecticut River Museum’s proposed new Discovery Center and on a Welcome Center and Gallery for Hill-Stead Museum in Farmington.