DOCOMOMO NOLA @ SAH

Several local DOCOMOMO board members will participate in the Society of Architectural Historians 64th Annual Meeting in New Orleans April 13-17, 2011. Special events include a historic preservation seminar on post-disaster preservation, a roundtable discussion on the challenges faced by the local chapter to preserving modernism, and a tour of modernist sites around the city.

On Wednesday April 13th Keli Rylance ( Board Member, DOCOMOMO US, and Head, Southeastern Architectural Archive and the School of Architecture Library) and Eleanor Shelby Burke (Board Member DOCOMOMO US/Louisiana, and Deputy Director New Orleans Historic District Landmarks Commission) will participate in a Historic Preservation Seminar: Post Disaster Preservation: The Best and Worst Case Scenarios.

On Friday April 15th Francine Stock (President, DOCOMOMO US/LA and Curator of Tulane School of Architecture New Orleans Virtual Archive), and Keli Rylance will lead a discussion about the fate of New Orleans modernism in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita (2005). The conversation will include an assessment of the National Preservation Act’s Section 106 Process as it has been applied to midcentury modernism.

On Saturday April 16th Stock and Rylance will lead a tour of Modernism in New Orleans. Beginning along Canal Street, home to many of the modernist firms, the tour will follow this mercantile artery into Mid-City, where it will loop around into historic Treme to stop at the Phillis Wheatley Elementary School (Charles R. Colbert, 1955), a World Monuments Fund watch site. From there, the tour will stop at several residences along Bayou St. John and in the Lakeshore neighborhood, culminating at the home of native architect Albert C. Ledner.

Conference registration is open.