Save Wheatley School!

Charles Colbert's master work is threatened with imminent demolition at the hands of the Recovery School Board. Docomomo Louisiana considers Phillis Wheatley Elementary School one of the ten most important modernist buildings in the state. They have presented the RSD with a vision of how this important historic building can be renewed and adapted as part of a state-of the art school for Tremé. Now it's your turn.

Please submit comments in support of the preservation of the Wheatley School (Charles Colbert, 1955) and Lafon Elementary School (Curtis and Davis, 1954) to the FEMA 106 site.

http://www.crt.state.la.us/culturalassets/fema106/

Comments are due by September 30, 2009.

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.

Preservation Matters: Keynote address by Robert Ivy

On January 31, 2009 the Tulane School of Architecture hosted the Preservation Matters symposium organized by Dean Kenneth Schwartz. In this introduction he outlines the two main purposes of the symposium. "First, to focus on preservation education issues and the future of preservation in an open exploratory way, while inviting everyone interested in this topic... to focus on what this means to Tulane University as a national research university in this amazing city. . . . Second is to recognize the extraordinary contributions by Gene Cizek - the contributions he has made throughout his distinguished career at Tulane as Director of Preservation Studies." Dean Schawrtz also introduces the panel, Erica Avrami, Daniel Bluestone, Eugene Darwin Cizek, Ned Kaufman, Stanley Lowe, Jorge Rigau and the Keynote speaker, Robert Ivy.

The editor of Architectural Record since 1996, Robert Ivy holds a Masters in Architecture from Tulane University and is a former student of Gene Cizek. He provides an overview of Cizek's extensive accomplishments and legacy. Ivy looks forward to discuss challenges to preservation in China and London. He then looks back and frames the history of architectural preservation in the context of iconic buildings that focus on a significant person, event or place.

Ivy reminds us of the rich history of preservation in New Orleans. (In preservation we are progressive!) In 1925 New Orleans was the first city to pass an ordinance to create a historic district - the Vieux Carré. He also recalls the dedication of citizens like Elizabeth Werlein of New Orleans and the role of Tulane University in the growth of our local movement. He reviews the advances made by Tulane alumni in the field.

• Richard Koch (1910) "the progenitor of the Historic American Building Survey in New Orleans"
• Samuel Wilson (1931) "scholarly, authoritative, erudite and accurate"
• A. Hays Town (1926) "headed HABS in Mississippi....and produced the first drawings that HABS produced"
• Bernard Lemann (1926) "created an inventory of historic sites...part of the 1967 Community Renewal Program....mentor to generations of Tulanians"

In the Vieux Carré: A General Statement Lemann voiced the importance of recognizing the tout ensemble - the relationship of the part to the whole. This marks the evolution of an attitude of preserving individual buildings to one of preserving districts and a more comprehensive understanding of place.

Ivy reviews the history of legislation which enabled the growth of the movement. He discusses the National Trust's Main Street program as transformative - linking commercial revitalization to the preservation of historic buildings and neighborhoods. He credits New Orleans as a model community for preservation activity due to the combination of the high number of National Register Districts, efforts of the Preservation Resource Center, the enabling legislation and the commitment of individuals. Ivy's "democratization of preservation" is then the expansion of the dialogue and activity to a larger audience, "achieving the maximum benefit for the greatest number of people." He poses the question of representation. "Who is in charge here? Who guards the legacy? Who tells the story?"

Modernism, as exemplified locally in the Phillis Wheatley School, generally presents a problem to preservation. After the Second World War there was tremendous need for new buildings now. Some were excellent, worthy of care and recognition, while "others merely filled space." They present technical challenges due to the degradation of the physical fabric. They are often overlooked due to an "architectural myopia" - a condition that disables us from appreciating that which is too close.

Regarding sustainability, Ivy notes that the embedded energy of buildings is the greatest contributor to carbon emissions in the world. The percentage ranges by study -33% to 48% - more than transportation! This is increased by the energy required for demolition, hauling rubble and storing it somewhere "as a problem for the next generation."

New Orleans' architecture is generally well suited to its climate, utilizing convection, understanding how to pull a cooling breeze across a room. Extended roof lines shield walls from intense sun and rain. (see: Hoffman School) This responsiveness to site needs to be recognized and LEED needs to integrate its standards with preservation. Ivy suggests we are approaching a renewed Urbanism, an "Age of the City." He challenges the panel and audience to consider the following:

• What does Preservation mean now and for the future?
• Who is it for?
• What is the role of archaeology, science, economy, sustainability?
  

Special thanks to Tulane Technology Services for editing the video and hosting it on the Tulane YouTube channel.

Preservation Matters Symposium

Save the Date

Saturday, January 31, 2009
Lavin Bernick Center, Kendall Cram Lecture Hall
Tulane University
Keynote speaker: Robert Ivy, FAIA
Editor-in-chief, Architectural Record
conference organized by Kenneth Schwartz, FAIA
Dean of the School of Architecture
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

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.