NEW! Audubon Park Finding Aid

The Southeastern Architectural Archive recently finalized the processing of its Audubon Park Drawings. The collection includes scant architectural renderings – mostly blueprints – and one set of specifications pertaining to Audubon Park, situated on the former Foucher Plantation Tract and now located in the Sixth Municipal District of New Orleans, Louisiana. Two sheets reflect the park’s layout in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, one sheet indicating the position of Horticultural Hall (1884) and its proximity to the Louisiana Science and Agricultural Association’s experimentation station, designed by James Freret (1889). Four drawings are products of the Olmsted Brothers’ office in Brookline, Massachusetts (1918-1924). These are based on blueprint copies of New Orleans architect Emile Weil’s bandstand (1916-1921). Another set of blueprints and specifications reflect park commissioner Walter Cook Keenan’s designs for the flying bird cage in the Audubon Park Zoo, a Works Progress Administration project (1936; 1948) that replaced an earlier structure by Sam Stone, Jr.

 If you are unfamiliar with the Southeastern Architectural Archive's holdings, consult its list of "Finding Aids by Collection Name."