Resorts at Sea: October update

Because of my research into everything Mid-century – specifically, the late 1940s through the early 1960s – I found myself immersed in architecture from that time, and loving it. I also kept coming across references to the Case Study Houses. Long story short, I went to artsandarchitecture.com, and downloaded all the PDFs relating to the Case Study Houses.

In a word, holy crap. These articles are an amazing read, and anyone interested in residential architecture should read them. They are a very welcome distraction. I’m also finding inspirations in the article layouts, not that I’m going to deliberately revisit what I’ve already done, but if something should happen, it’ll come about organically.

As the tentative title of this project is Resorts at Sea, there should be some content regarding land-based resorts, following a similar timeline. In order to make it accessible to the reader, I’ll focus on those resorts most familiar to the casual observer, even if the names aren’t known.

For example, the Fountainebleau Hotel in Miami has a guest appearance immediately after the opening credits in the movie Goldfinger, and is a prime example of resort architecture, and will help draw comparisons to the evolution of passenger ship design and décor. (I hope.) An interesting aside, Morris Lapidus designed the Fountainebleau, and he also had a hand in Carnival Cruise Lines’ early ships, the Mardi Gras and Carnivale.

In the You’ve Got to be Kidding Me! Department, I found a website dedicated to post-World War II American ships … Based in Germany. It’s amazing that many nations take pride in their maritime heritage, while the United States seems to fall short. Yes we have our enthusiasts, but sometimes we pale compared to our European counterparts. It was here where I found a number of magazines from the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company in PDF. Huzzah! I’ll take it where I can get it.

 The sleek ns Savannah.

The Savannah's dining room. A gold model 

of the original steam-powered Savannah is center left.

I also found a veritable trove of documents on the final ship to be discussed in this project, the ns Savannah, the world’s first nuclear-powered commercial vessel. Although sleek and curvy in design, these are traits not welcome when hauling cargo, as she came on the scene as boxy container ships were dawning.

It’s also fitting she’s last, as the first ships covered are the Panama, Ancon, and Cristobal, identical sisters for the Panama Line. Those three and the Savannah were designed by the firm of George G. Sharp. You can be sure I’ll touch upon the evolution of his design work.