About
New permanent gallery rides in museum
10/16/06
This article originally appeared in the Roanoke Times on 10/11/2006
By Kevin Kittredge
The O. Winston Link Museum has opened a new permanent gallery devoted to Raymond Loewy, the flamboyant designer who gave the Norfolk and Western Passenger Station an extreme makeover in the 1940s.
The former passenger station now houses the Link Museum and the Roanoke Valley Convention & Visitors Bureau.
"Raymond Loewy: Designer for a Modern Era," documents the long life and myriad achievements of the French-born designer. Loewy designed everything from cigarette packs to the interior of Skylab. He designed Studebakers and Greyhound buses and the Shell logo.
In the 1940s he lavishly redesigned N&W's 45-year-old passenger station in Roanoke. Loewy gave the station a streamlined look, with lots of glass and the valley's first escalators.
The designer, who died in 1986, was considerably more famous than train photographer Link in his day -- he was once on the cover of Time. He had homes on two continents and hobnobbed with the rich and famous at Palm Beach and St. Tropez. "I remember being paraded out to meet the Sinatras, the Hopes and the Douglasses," recalled his daughter, Laurence Loewy, in an interview in 2004.
The $106,000 gallery by 1717 Design includes Loewy-designed items, information panels and a three-minute video on Loewy's life. "It's pretty cool," museum manager Kim Parker said of the video.
The Loewy gallery is located in the back of the building on the top floor, opposite the Link Museum gift shop. Admission is free. 982-LINK; www.linkmuseum.org