You are here

Savannah » Beyond Downtown and Its Immediate Suburbs » Greater Savannah to the East » Along the Savannah River: Savannah Forts, Oatland Island, and Tybee Light Station » Fort Pulaski Visitor Center

Fort Pulaski Visitor Center

-A A +A
1962–1963, National Park Service Eastern Office of Design and Construction (EODC), Levy and Kiley, supervising architects; Donald S. Nutt, supervising engineer

Constructed as part of the National Park Service’s Mission 66 program to expand visitor services leading up to their fiftieth anniversary in 1966, the Visitor Center stands outside the fort in order to preserve the site as a “period exhibit.” The modernist design of this cylindrical brick building complements the simplicity of the historic fortifications and is positioned precisely so that its exit positions the visitor on axis with the center line of the fort. The architects drew inspiration from Eero Saarinen’s design for the MIT Chapel (1955) for its circular plan, base arches, rusticated brick, and surrounding gravel moat. A functional sunscreen of aluminum panels positioned vertically on brackets is on the southwest side of the building.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Robin B. Williams with David Gobel, Patrick Haughey, Daves Rossell, and Karl Schuler
×

Data

What's Nearby

Fort Pulaski National Monument
Fort Pulaski
Fort Pulaski Demilune
Fort Pulaski National Monument
Battery Hambright

Citation

Robin B. Williams with David Gobel, Patrick Haughey, Daves Rossell, and Karl Schuler, "Fort Pulaski Visitor Center", [Savannah, Georgia], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/GA-02-15.4.1.

Print Source

Buildings of Savannah, Robin B. Williams. With David Gobel, Patrick Haughey, Daves Rossell, and Karl Schuler. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016, 234-234.

If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.

SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.

,