Book Talk: The US Embassies of the Cold War: The Battle of the Curtain Wall vs. the Iron Curtain by David B. Peterson
Join David B. Peterson, Founder & President of the Onera Foundation, at the New Canaan Library Jim & Dede Bartlett Auditorium for his lecture The US Embassies of the Cold War: The Battle of the Curtain Wall vs. the Iron Curtain. During the Cold War, the US State Department used modern architecture as a powerful form of cultural diplomacy, designing embassies to express the ideals of a progressive, democratic society. Peterson’s talk is based on his book US Embassies of the Cold War: the Architecture of Democracy, Diplomacy and Defense, a large-format, photo-driven book featuring the fourteen most significant midcentury modern American embassies designed by leading architects, including: Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Eero Saarinen, and Edward Durell Stone. Today, many of the Cold War embassies are being decommissioned and sold, and their future remains uncertain.