New Orleans :: most Progressive Architecture awards :: 1955

Phillis Wheatley Elementary School, originally uploaded by regional.modernism.

In 1955 the Phillis Wheatley Elementary School was awarded a citation for its innovative design by Progressive Architecture. "All of the 22 classrooms for 770 pupils were raised off the ground, in order to provide an open play area, as the building occupies the major part of the site. Two rows of concrete piers support the cantilevered structure. A series of large steel trusses sandwiched between the classroom walls make this cantilever possible. Classrooms are accessible from open corridors, have bilateral lighting and cross ventilation. Administration and combination auditorium / cafeteria are housed in adjoining one-story structure."

In addition to Phillis Wheatley, five other designs by New Orleans architects received awards in Progressive Architecture's second annual Design Awards Program juried by Dr. Walter Gropius.

The Times-Picayune reports, "The designs, which gave New Orleans and Louisiana more awards than any other city or state were done by Curtis and Davis, Charles R. Colbert, John W. Lawrence, George A. Saunders, Buford L. Pickens and John Ekin Dinwiddie. The designs were of six proposed Louisiana buildings."

The envelope please.....

HEALTHCARE Madison Parish Hospital in Tullulah, Curtis and Davis

EDUCATION Phillis Wheatley Elementary School in New Orleans, Charles R. Colbert

RESIDENTIAL Dr. and Mrs. Lyman K. Richardson Residence in Harahan, Curtis and Davis

RESIDENTIAL Vacation House in Lacombe, Lawrence and Saunders

RESIDENTIAL General Electric demonstration house in New Orleans, John Lawrence and George A. Saunders with Buford L. Pickens

RELIGIOUS St. Bernard Methodist Church in Chalmette, John Lawrence and George A. Saunders with John Dinwiddie

International Longshoreman's Association (ACTIVE DEMOLITION)

International Longshoreman's Association (THREATENED), originally uploaded by regional.modernism.

"As one vitally interested in the contemporary world - one who welcomes living in the Twentieth Century and nourished the hope of contributing to it - I have independently come to the conclusion that the preservation of that which is good, be it old or new, is absolutely essential to our sanity as well as our understanding of ourselves, and to our own progress. We make a mistake if we equate old with good, but when we do find these coexisting then there is the greatest imperative to preserve the old for only by doing so can we have a sense of time and sense of place without which we have only a present, ever fleeting - which is an intolerable and unbearable state for man. When therefore, I say that the preservation of the good and the old is essential for man's sanity, I do not overstate the case."

John Lawrence, 1964