New Orleans Architect Daniel Garza

In October 1926, Mexican exile Daniel Garza (b. Oaxaca 1865 - † New Orleans 1926) applied for membership in the Louisiana Architects Association (LAA). His application -- endorsed by New Orleans architects William Burk, Julius Dreyfous and Leon C. Weiss -- indicated that he had obtained his education at the Liceo Fournier and the National Preparatory School, and that he was a former vice president of the Academia de Ingenieros y Arquitectos and the Associación de Ingenieros del Colegio Militar.(1)

Garza developed a new method of reinforced concrete construction that had been utilized in his landscape designs for Chapultepec Forest in Mexico City. Prior to his exile "for political troubles" he conducted experiments with the Garza System at the Colonia de "El Imparcial" outside of Mexico City [now Colonia Clavería], that were witnessed by other architects and engineers and later published -- along with a New Orleans residence he designed -- in Building Review (New Orleans, June 1922).  He patented his system in the United States on 2 August 1921.

Less than a month after applying for LAA membership, Garza died. He was buried in St. Louis Cemetery No. 3.

(1) Application. 7 October 1926. Folder 1, Box 33. American Institute of Architects New Orleans Chapter Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Image above: Daniel Garza. "A New System of Unit Reinforced Concrete Construction." Building Review (June 1922): pp. 11-12. Louisiana Research Collection, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Garza held the following U.S. patents:

https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/bd/17/00/851a01842a7602/US1637935.pdf

https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/4f/c1/95/dcee6df2240e32/US1386251.pdf