Membership Renewal Time!

Its membership renewal time in the Docomomo US office. Because of your participation and membership, our organization continues to lead local and national discussions on the preservation of modern architecture and promote public awareness of the significance of modernist works. Modern architecture and design is featured more prominently as evidenced in the increased coverage in publications such as the New York Times and television shows like Mad Men and Pan Am. As a member-based organization, your Docomomo US membership is essential in promoting that public awareness and interest. As the end of the year approaches, please consider renewing your membership or become a first-time member.

 

Benefits of a Docomomo US membership include:

 

• Local chapter membership
• Discounts on local events, lectures, film screenings
• Discounts on national events including Tour Day
• Subscription to our monthly Docomomo US electronic newsletter
• Invitations to member-only special events
• The Docomomo US membership card

Docomomo US and its chapters thank you for your continued membership and support.

SOM 1958

The former Pan-American Life Insurance Company Building (1951-52), designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill with Claude Edgar Hooton, Jr. (1905-1993). The National Register structure is currently being restored and repaired for use by the Veterans Administration.

Image above: Detail, F.Donald Gibson, letter to Freret-LaCour, 3 December 1958, Building Letterheads, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Wilford Francis Calongne, Jr. (1921-2012)

Published in The Sun Herald on 9 August 2012:

Wilford "Bill" Calongne, 90, of Ocean Springs, MS died on Saturday, August 4, 2012. Mr. Calongne was a resident of Ocean Springs since 1984. He retired from Tulane University where he was a Professor in Architecture. His urbane and gentle manner was as influential as his considerable skill as an architect. What set him apart was his interest in music, particularly that of modern composers and his passion for the well-designed object. Unlike most of his University colleagues, he was almost universally admired as a non dogmatic but highly principled teacher and architect. Some of his noteworthy students were Albert Ledner, Milton Scheuermann and Errol Barron. In the scope of his career, he designed many notable buildings in New Orleans and on the gulf coast to include several homes in Biloxi, Ocean Springs and Pascagoula. Mr. Calongne retired from teaching at Tulane in 1984. In November of 1973 he bought four acres of land at Pointe aux Chenes, where he planned to build his dream home. His home was eventually built as an architectural experiment of his own design. The home was geometrically pure, spatially concise and sturdy surviving Hurricane Katrina in 2005. His father, Wilford F. Calongne, was born in 1883 in New Orleans. He married Mary Haggarty in New Orleans in 1920. Wilford, Jr. was their only son and the family resided on Webster Street near Audubon Park.

Mr. Calongne is survived by extended families to include the Luckey, Smith and Calongne family that mourn his passing and celebrate his unique life.

Funeral services will be held on Saturday, August 11, 2012 at 1:30 p.m. at the Ocean Springs Chapel of Bradford-O'Keefe Funeral Home. Friends may visit from 1:00 p.m. until service time. Interment will follow in Evergreen Cemetery, Ocean Springs.

Memorials may be made to: In Memory of Wilford F. Calongne, Jr.,Tulane School of Architecture, Attn: Dean Schwartz, 6823 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, LA 70118.

View and sign register book at www.bradfordokeefe.com

UNFINISHED SPACES

The New Orleans Film Society, in partnership with the Prytania Theatre and Mathes Brierre present:

UNFINISHED SPACES

Wednesday, April 25, 2012
7:00 p.m.
Prytania Theatre
5339 Prytania Street

Official film synopsis: In 1961, three young, visionary architects were commissioned by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara to create Cuba’s National Art Schools on the grounds of a former golf course in Havana, Cuba. Construction of their radical designs began immediately and the school’s first classes soon followed. Dancers, musicians and artists from all over the country reveled in the beauty of the schools, but as the dream of the Revolution quickly became a reality, construction was abruptly halted and the architects and their designs were deemed irrelevant in the prevailing political climate. Forty years later the schools are in use, but remain unfinished and decaying. Castro has invited the exiled architects back to finish their unrealized dream. View trailer here.

Tickets may be purchased online through theprytania.com or at the box office. 

Arthur Q. Davis, FAIA (1920-2011)

Arthur Q. Davis, FAIA, originally uploaded by regional.modernism.

I feel so very fortunate to have had the opportunity to get to know architect Arthur Q. Davis through my work at the Tulane University School of Architecture, especially in my efforts since the storm to document the modern architecture of New Orleans. In 2008 Mr. Davis graciously met with my Regional Modernism class and made a great impression on the students. He was a colorful storyteller and shared anecdotes from when he studied under Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer and worked for Eero Saarinen, thus establishing within the room a tangible link to some of the great masters of modernism. We are now beginning to understand that Mr. Davis and his partner Nathaniel C. Curtis, Jr (1917-1997) were masters of regional modernism, committed to designing contemporary architecture relevant to our regional climate and urban fabric.

We tend to think of New Orleans architecture only in the vernacular. We tend to privilege traditional architecture over contemporary. We tend to overlook the modern architecture in our midst. But in the 1950s New Orleans was a hotbed for modern architecture and the partnership of Curtis and Davis were pioneers of the new. However the recent losses are staggering. Since the storm we have lost six significant buildings designed by Curtis and Davis - the St. Frances Cabrini Church, four schools (McDonogh 39, Thomy Lafon, Carver and Cabrini) and the Dr. Lyman K. Richardson Residence. In the past few years Mr. Davis frequently lamented that an architect should not outlive his buildings. We are blessed that the magnum opus of the firm, the recently renamed and brilliantly illuminated Mercedes-Benz Superdome, the most recognized building in the state of Louisiana, stands as a testament to the ingenuity and ambition of Mr. Curtis and Mr. Davis.

Francine Stock
president
DOCOMOMO US/Louisiana

Arthur Q. Davis (1920-2011)

New Orleans architect Arthur Q. Davis passed away on Wednesday, 30 November 2011 at Ochsner Baptist Medical Center. A graduate of Tulane University's School of Architecture and a World War II veteran, Davis studied with Walter Gropius and apprenticed in Eero Saarinen's Michigan office.

In 1947, Davis received an offer from another Tulane alumnus -- Nathaniel C. Curtis, Jr. (1917-1997) -- to establish a joint practice in New Orleans. The Curtis and Davis partnership lasted nearly thirty years, and its Modernist buildings were once pervasive throughout the Crescent City. Structures such as Thomy Lafon Elementary School (razed 2011), the Rivergate Convention Center (razed 1995) and the Superdome garnered international attention. Journals such as Progressive Architecture, Architectural Forum and Architecture d’aujourd’hui highlighted the firm’s notable buildings, a long list that came to include projects in Germany, Vietnam, and Saudi Arabia.

In 1978, the firm was acquired by the West Coast engineering and architecture office of Daniel, Mann, Johnson, and Mendenhall (DMJM). Davis worked with DMJM for twenty years, and then established his own firm, Arthur Q. Davis FAIA and Associates, in 1998.

In 2009, Mr. Davis published a memoir, titled It Happened by Design: The Life and Work of Arthur Q. Davis, which summarizes his career and his reflections on the profession. He was working on a history of the Berlin Medical Center at the time of his death.

Image above: Frank Lotz Miller, photographer. Arthur Q. Davis, Architect. Curtis & Davis Office Records, © Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Shaw, Metz & Associates, 1963

Shaw, Metz & Associates (Chicago, IL)

225 Baronne Street, New Orleans, LA

Made use of NATCO Corporation's structural clay called Face Brick:

"Natco Face Brick is available in all standard, norman, roman, jumbo and norwegian sizes . . . modular and conventional dimensions. . . plain and textured finishes. . . "

Image/quoted matter above is from "new ideas in ageless structural clay--brick by Natco" Progressive Architecture (September 1963): p. 115.