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.
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