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

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.