Sunkel-Nagin Residence on the Market

Sunkel Residence, originally uploaded by regional.modernism.

Former Mayor Ray Nagin has listed his residence on the market. Architect Albert C. Ledner designed the house in 1962 for Pat and Adrian Sunkel - the first of three houses Ledner designed on Park Island. Known as the "Ashtray House" for its frieze of amber glass ashtrays along the fascia.

VIEW LISTING (includes photos of interior!)

Robert E. Smith branch, New Orleans Public Library (1956)

Robert E. Smith branch, New Orleans Public Library (1956), originally uploaded by regional.modernism.

Real estate agent and contractor Robert E. Smith donated funds to construct the the 12th branch of the New Orleans Public Library on city-owned land at Canal Boulevard and Harrison Avenue in Lakeview.

Designed by architects Albert J. Saputo and Albert C. Ledner in 1954, the Robert E. Smith branch opened in April 1956. The 2400 SF octagonal building featured a pleated 8-gable roof with clerestory beneath.  Ledner also used the folded-plate roof design for the  National Maritime Union hall on Tchoupitoulas and Washington.

The branch was razed and replaced with a larger structure in 1979. The replacement library building was razed in 2009. Construction of a new library branch is in progress.

[F. Stock; photo: Louisiana Division/City Archives, New Orleans Public Library]

FOUND! Presentation drawings of the Wheatley School (1954)

On Thursday I took a day-trip to the Lakefront to search for documents related to the Phillis Wheatley  Elementary School in the Orleans Parish School Board archives at Special Collections, UNO Library. I had low expectations and never dreamed we'd actually find THE drawings.  I was told to look for Colbert's correspondence file, as sometimes architects tuck a sketch in with a letter. 

It was a long shot and also happened to be an absolutely gorgeous day. I took nearly two hours to get to the library, as I kept stopping to take photos of modernist houses along the way. The first one to stop me in my tracks had tile which reminded me of Albert Ledner's National Maritime Union at Washington and Tchoupitoulas.* Later in the day I learned that this house at 4119 Vincennes was indeed designed by Ledner in 1954 for Irving Roth. photo 

Next I photographed a series of houses on Lakeshore Drive, including Ledner's Moradian House (1978). photos  I was almost at UNO, but then forced to turn off Lakeshore Drive due to road closure. This detour took me back through Lake Terrace on Oriole. More gems.

Finally turned on my blinders and made it over to the UNO Library and up to Special Collections on the 4th floor. Within minutes I was presented with binders of finding aids which led me rather quickly to absolute success.

We have been searching for drawings of the Wheatley School for years. Mr. Colbert lost his personal archive when his house flooded. Representatives of the Recovery School District told us the OPSB archives had flooded as well, so IF they had drawings, they were likely lost in the soup and tossed. Thank goodness they were wrong. About ten minutes after entering the UNO Library I was holding a set of nine presentation drawings of the Wheatley School from 1954. The drawings have been digitized and I will write more specifically about them as well Colbert's correspondence soon. 

Upon leaving UNO, I called Keli Rylance at SEAA to share the good news. She gave me another address to seek out as well which led me to photograph one of the oldest homes in Lake Vista. photo

All in all, an absolutely brilliant day.

-------------------------

* Sadly the NMU tile was recently stuccoed in a renovation. photo

Old News :: Good News

Last month members of the board of Docomomo Louisiana presented a slideshow to the City Council Special Housing Committee at the request of Council Member Stacy Head. We were joined by Eliot Perkins, Executive Director of the Historic District Landmarks Commission. Head had requested this meeting to learn more about our mission and challenges. Ms. Head noted that seeing images of the buildings in better days helped her recognize their significance. She recommended we take our slide show on the road and present to neighborhood groups.

Update on Whitney Bank :: The City Council voted to uphold the HDLC designation as a historic landmark.


Update on Wheatley School :: The World Monuments Fund Watch listing has brought significant attention. Its possible we may have found the right fit for adaptive reuse. John Klingman was interviewed by Dave Egbert at Living Green Radio about sustainable reuse of Wheatley and other modernist structures. Listen here.

AIA Louisiana honors Albert Ledner with the Medal of Honor.

Preserving the Recent Past :: Lecture and Panel Discussion

Pre-cast concrete space frame system. Pre-cast units held together with post-tensioned steel cables. Simon Bolivar Ave. Central City. Albert C. Ledner, architect. from: Talk about Architecture, Lemann, Heard and Klingman

Tuesday, September 15, 2009
6:30 p.m. Cash bar
7 p.m. Lecture and panel discussion

At the PRC
923 Tchoupitoulas St.
(in the Warehouse District)

This exclusive event for PRC and Ogden members will illustrate the value and integrity of architecture from our recent past.

Speaker:
Arthur Q. Davis, born in 1920 in New Orleans, is a modern architect whose long and prolific career has earned fame and respect both locally and around the world. He studied under masters at Tulane University's School of Architecture as well as Harvard University. He has been a pioneer in the fields of modern architecture and design in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast; and although he is internationally renowned, he remains deeply rooted in the culture of his native city.

Moderator:
J. Richard Gruber is director of the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans. He and Arthur Q. Davis co-wrote a book, It Happened by Design: The Life and Work of Arthur Q. Davis, published by University Press of Mississippi in April 2009.

Panelists:
- Jack Davis, editor, writer, and board member of the National Trust for Historic Preservation
- Albert Ledner, modernist architect and former apprentice to Frank Lloyd Wright
- Wayne Troyer, award-winning architect and board member of the PRC
- Elliot Perkins, executive director of the Historic District Landmarks Commission

Presented by the PRC's Membership Education Committee, chaired by Julie Habetz.

$5 - open to members of the PRC and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

PRC memberships start at $35 per year - join onsite!

For more information, contact Suzanne at 504.636.3399 or sblaum@prcno.org.

Galatoire House (Albert Ledner, architect)

ledner30, originally uploaded by regional.modernism. Galatoire Residence, 1966, Albert C. Ledner, 11 Park Island, New Orleans, LA photo: Francine Stock

In December of 2007 the new owner of the Galatoire House at No. 11 Park Island graciously opened his doors to the board of DOCOMOMO-Louisiana for an informal tour with the architect Albert Ledner. The photographs featured in this post are from the 2007 tour. The house previously had been featured on a tour of modernist buildings in New Orleans organized by the Tulane School of Architecture in 1994. I recently found a copy of this brochure and will subsequently blog the other buildings listed as well.

This home blends antique and contemporary, delicate windows and massive curving surfaces. Mrs. Galatoire spent much of her life collecting components from buildings slated for demolition, and the architect took up the challenge of incorporating them into a coherent home.

The entry drive and courtyard are paved with cobblestones from the site of the International Trade Mart, and the courtyard features an antique three-tier iron fountain in a reflecting pool. Arched fan doors from the Garden District home of Josephine Louise Newcomb serve as the entrance.

Mrs. Galatoire's collection of windows from Good Shepherd Convent (built in 1866 at Bienville and Broad Streets for the care of delinquent little girls) includes the arched windows that form the front of the house and eleven stained glass ceiling fixtures.

To the right of the entryway is a guest suite. The bath features a Portuguese carved door dating to the mid-eighteenth century, collected from the home of Archbishop John Shaw. Bronze faced window benches with antique tiles from the Shaw house are seen in the bedroom, living room and television room.

Stone is important in this home. The downstairs floor is white marble, and several bathrooms include marble as well. The circular wall behind the dining room and living area is of granite.

The curving lines of the building are particularly striking as the balcony passes through the arched windows upstairs. Equally compelling is the view of Bayou St. John. The back stairway is also an exercise in curves. It spirals tightly, and the newel post is a series of stacked [glass] balls.

Mrs. Galatoire's eclectic tastes are evident in the kitchen: the cooking island, crafted from a single brass column, was once the service counter of [the Whitney] Bank. An antique door of glass and metal is from Spain.

More recent owners have added a memento from another chapter of New Orleans history: the Floating Leaves from the 1984 World's Fair Wonder Wall, designed by Kent Bloomer of the Yale Art Department.

source: "The International Style in New Orleans" tour brochure, Tulane University School of Architecture, copy by Patty Andrews, 1994.

see also: "The Creation of Park Island" by Carolyn Kolb, New Orleans Magazine, February 21, 2007

National Maritime Union, 1954

National Maritime Union, originally uploaded by regional.modernism.

The National Maritime Union Hall in New Orleans was Albert Ledner's first major commercial project. Up to that time, Ledner's work was solely residential. Last spring, the Regional Modernism class at Tulane had the opportunity to interview Mr. Ledner. He showed the class his pages and pages of calculations he had run in the process of designing this dynamic structure. The following is an excerpt from our conversation.

They wanted a modern building. They were in an old structure down in the French Quarter. They felt as though they wanted new digs. So they bought this property on Tchopitoulas and Washington..... We needed a roof structure to span 100 feet without any columns and an open space. We weren't concerned with having to add a second floor. And so I had experimented earlier, I think here at Tulane as a student with corrugated structures and the strength inherent in corrugating any item. Thin material in corrugation has a great deal of strength. So it was a combination of that early idea of corrugating with a circular building.

I didn't have a structural engineer at the time. I worked out the structure and we built it.... During the framing one of the city inspectors happened to be passing by and saw it and said, 'My God that roof will never hold. It's going to collapse.' Because of the very light framing. So they stopped the construction.They said we had to load it with sandbags to see if it's going to hold up. Which we did.

- Albert C. Ledner, Spring 2008

National Maritime Union (under renovation)

National Maritime Union, originally uploaded by regional.modernism.

Last week, I went to Albert Ledner's National Maritime Union to view status of the current renovation. Unfortunately the exterior glazed brick has been covered in plaster. The glazed brick interior is intact. At least for now.

see new photos in flickr.

NYC :: NOLA :: NYC

The New Orleans World Trade Center (formerly International Trade Mart) is located at the foot of Canal Street, once the premier commercial thoroughfare of the city.* Positioning the new International Trade Mart (ITM) on this site was part of a major redevelopment that began in the postwar period.

In 1946 Robert Moses, the "master builder" of New York City, published his Arterial Plan for New Orleans. This included the now infamous plan for the nearly built Riverfront Expressway, a "four-lane elevated highway over the railroad tracks" from Elysian Fields Avenue to Calliope. The plan was designed to alleviate congestion and ease our traffic woes, and ironically claimed it would protect the Vieux Carre from erosion due to traffic. Preservationists argued that this elevated waterfront expressway would effectively cut off the Vieux Carre from the River on which the city was founded.

By the completion of the ITM Building in 1967, the Riverfront Expressway controversy was in high swing. The new tower (the tallest building in New Orleans until it was surpassed by the Plaza Tower in 1969) became emblematic of this fear of change and a vision of what a New New Orleans might look like. The ITM was designed by the New York architect Edward Durell Stone, best known for the design of the Rockefeller Center. It was capped by a revolving lounge, the Top of the Mart, which featured red velvet furniture and a spectacular view of the city and its environs.**

Today the New Orleans World Trade Center is under restoration and interior conversion by architect Frederic Schwartz FAIA, one of the principal designers of the THINK World Cultural Center in New York. Recently, Schwartz addressed the New York City Landmarks Commission in defense of the O'Toole Building by New Orleans architect Albert Ledner.

* This site is a significant point of demarcation in the New Orleanian mental compass. North, South, East and West are blurry distinctions in a city better navigated by Uptown, Downtown, Riverside and Lakeside. Uptown and Downtown historically refer to the upper and lower sides of Canal Street that separate the Spanish / French / Creole Quarter form the American Sector. But you knew that.

** The Top of the Mart was closed in the summer of 2001 and all that fabulous furniture liquidized. The revolving lounge had been purchased by Randy Gerber, who planned to transform it from the 1960s to the new millenium. He pulled out shortly after the terrorist attacks on the New York World Trade Center. The nightclub was eventually re-opened as Club 360.

National Maritime Union

National Maritime Union, originally uploaded by regional.modernism.

by Ben Wasserman

In the early 1950s Albert Ledner got the commission for the National Maritime Union’s hiring hall through a close friend. He was to complete 14 buildings for the Union between 1954 and 1968 – in cities from San Francisco to San Juan. This included 3 in New York City and one in New Orleans. The most famous and dramatic of these is the Curran/O’Toole Building in Greenwich Village, NYC. These NMU buildings were striking examples of Ledner’s eccentric take on Modernism. Due to the similarity of these buildings and the number of different cities they were built in, looking at the New Orleans building will be an excellent way of analyzing the regional character of the building.