Thompson Exhibition Building / Centerbrook

Architects and Planners

 Architects : Centerbrook Architects and Planners

 Location : Mystic, Stonington, CT, United States
 Architect in Charge : Chad Floyd, FAIA; Charles G. Mueller, AIA, ALA
 Area : 21.681 ft2
 Project Year : 2016

Thompson Exhibition Building

The Thompson Exhibition Building was designed for Mystic Seaport, Museum of America and
the Sea, as a keynote building for the 19-acre riverfront campus. The project’s mission was to
transform the north end of the Seaport to greatly enhance the quality of exhibition space and to
offer a more robust year-round experience for visitors.
The building is located where the Seaport’s previous indoor-oriented exhibit spaces were concentrated,
and forms the new Donald C. McGraw Gallery Quadrangle. This sociable greensward, with a panoramic
view of the Mystic River, provides an appealing venue for activities ranging from outdoor concerts to
impromptu picnics.

In addition to a 5,000-square- foot exhibition gallery with a high ceiling for displaying boats, the
building features visitor reception and events space, a retail shop, a café and outdoor terraces
overlooking the Mystic River. Energy-efficient components and geothermal heating and cooling
are also incorporated in the design.
The flexible exhibition space features soaring ceilings and demountable walls to accommodate
objects of varying size and installations of all types, from watercraft to priceless works of fine art
and gallery-based educational programs. A riverfront gathering room graces the west side of the
building and can be reconfigured for conferences, additional gallery space, or educational
programs, adding to the new building’s versatility.
Overall, the building stands for what we came to regard as “the geometry of the sea” – the spiral
shape of sea life, the kinetic movement of ocean swells, the crash of waves on the shore, the
billow of sails, and the faring of wooden hulls. Wood was the ideal material for these purposes
because it can economically enclose a large clear-span space while forming complex organic
geometries.
The intention overall was a wooden structured volume that would suggest a hull’s interior
architecture. To support a long porch along the north edge of a new quadrangle, wooden
columns and struts give the effect of sailing vessels’ masts and spars. Railing cables and
turnbuckles provide detail around the deck to conjure ship’s rigging.
For the building’s structure, curved glued-laminated wood ribs were utilized to imply a sailing
ship’s top timbers, the curving members that delineate a hull’s shape. Wood purlins between the
ribs bring to mind planking that forms the skin of a hull. Douglas Fir was specified for the glued-
laminated structural members as it was the species New England ship builders preferred after
the Civil War once the western forests had been opened up.