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.