NEW! Blitch Finding Aid

The Southeastern Architectural Archive recently finalized the processing of the Blitch Architects, Incorporated Office Records. The collection consists of architectural drawings representing the following firms: J. Buchanan Blitch & Associates and Blitch Architects, Incorporated.

Read more about the Blitch practice in the online finding aid here.

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

Gehry in New Orleans

As Frank Gehry's new Make It Right house has been gaining attention, it reminded us that the Southeastern Architectural Archive retains drawings of the architect's first New Orleans project, the Louisiana World Exposition Amphitheater.

An American Institute of Architects award-winning structure, the LWE amphitheater was designed in 1983. Originally the city expressed an interest in retaining the amphitheater beyond the duration of the World's Fair, but the Dock Board  had concerns about the structure's impact on wharf operations and property owner Lester Kabacoff felt that it would obstruct river views.

The Liggett and Myers Quality Seal Amphitheater -- the structure's promotional identity -- was dismantled shortly after the fair ended.

Image above:  Inverted detail, Frank O. Gehry & Associates, Inc. L.W.E. Amphitheater. 12 January 1983. Perez Associates 1984/Louisiana World Exposition Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collection Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Field Trip: Lincoln Square (Chicago) Illinois

Louis H. Sullivan (1856-1924) designed this facade for William C. Presto's Krause Music Store, which was completed in 1922. His last commission prior to his death, the Krause Music Store facade is profusely ornamented with Sullivan's distinctive naturalistically-driven terracotta.

After property owner William Krause died in 1929, the property eventually was sold to a funeral company. The structure functioned as a funeral parlor for over five decades and during that period its facade was altered and neglected.

Preservation architects McQuire Igleski & Associates researched historic architectural and terracotta shop drawings in order to restore the building for adaptive reuse. Their project was the recipient of the AIA Illinois' Crombie Taylor Award and a Richard H. Driehaus Foundation Award.

Preservation architect Gunny Harboe was recently honored by the City of Chicago for his significant efforts to restore its notable buildings, including Burnham & Root's Rookery and Louis Sullivan's Carson Pirie Scott Building.

The Art Institute of Chicago maintains a website that identifies Louis Sullivan's extant buildings in the Chicago metropolitan region. Click here to access.

Shannon Lee Dawdy MacArthur Recipient

University of Chicago anthropologist Shannon Lee Dawdy has received a 2010 MacArthur Grant in recognition of her scholarship. In recent years, her work has largely focused on New Orleans. Read more/watch a video here.

Building the Devil's Empire: French Colonial New Orleans is available through Tulane University Libraries.

1952 Better Rooms Contest

In 1952, New Orleans architects Mark Lowery, Lemuel McCoy and James Lamantia submitted designs to the annual Chicago Tribune "Better Rooms Competition." They were not the only architects to do so: Eero Saarinen was also one of 1,100 competitors that year. Each participant was required to submit drawings showing the furnishing, arrangement, and decoration related to one of seven designated room types.

In January 1952, Edward Barry announced the competition:

"Do not hesitate to enter The Tribune's $24,050 Sixth Annual Better Rooms competition merely because you feel the idea you want to submit may be considered extreme. Bold and original interior treatments, if they are practical, will be welcomed. The history of this influential contest proves that the various juries which have chosen the winners have always been hospitable to the new.

"One successful entrant used different floor levels to mark off the separate areas of a living-dining room. Several have specified centrally located fireplace walls. One winner of a major prize constructed an excellent multipurpose room in the unused half of a two-car garage. The need for providing television viewing facilities has resulted in some room treatments which at first glance seemed bizarre, but which on further study revealed themselves as logical and beautiful."

Ultimately, the Chicago Tribune awarded $24,050 in prizes after jurors Meyric R. Rogers, Richard Kostka, Paul R. MacAlister, Rod Cook and Boyd Hill reached consensus. Over 43 winners from 12 states and one foreign country won the 52 available prizes.

Image above: Detail from Mark Lowery, Lemuel McCoy, and James Lamantia's A-4 Bedroom for Single Occupancy-Juvenile 115 design for the Chicago Tribune's 6th Annual Better Rooms Competition, 1952. Mixed media on illustration board. James Lamantia Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

ON DISPLAY in the Southeastern Architectural Archive's new exhibition.

Internship Award

The Art Libraries Society of North America (ARLIS/NA) is now accepting applications for its annual Internship Award.

The ARLIS/NA Internship Award provides financial support for students preparing for a career in art librarianship or visual resources curatorship. The award grants $2,500.00 to the selected recipient to support a period of internship in an art/architecture library or visual resources collection.

The deadline for applications is October 15, 2009.

For detailed information about the award and application instructions please see the ARLIS/NA Website:

http://www.arlisna.org/about/awards/internship_info.html

For a directory of arts library-related internships, including those in the Gulf Region, consult the ARLIS/NA Internship Roster: http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/afa/pdc/internshiproster.htm

Call for Entries: Building By the Book

CALL FOR ENTRIES
BUILDING BY THE BOOK: Book Artists Respond to Architecture and Design

As part of Philagrafika 2010: The Graphic Unconscious, the Athenaeum of Philadelphia, in collaboration with the Philadelphia Center for the Book, recently issued a new architecture-focused competition.

The Athenaeum's curators have chosen ten special architecture-design books from their legacy research collections. Any artist/designer residing in the United States is invited to submit proposals for a book that responds to one of the selected books. The proposed book may be editioned or one-of-a-kind, artist books, book objects, altered books or zines. The proposal must be for newly created work, directly responding to one of the ten highlighted books.

Visit www.philaathenaeum.org/ for project details and to view the selected books, chosen from the Atheneum's architecture and design research collections.

Deadline for proposals is September 25, 2009

MAM Urban Photography Challenge

The Milwaukee Art Museum After Dark is co-sponsoring a photo competition called Exposure: Urban Photography Challenge.  The judges are seeking photographs that fit with the "street art" theme of the non-profit Hip Hop/Graffiti organization True Skool.  Competition deadline is 01 May 2009.  Additional guidelines may be found here.

Seasteading Design Competition

The Seasteading Institute (TSI) has recently announced an open competition to construct a 3-D model of a seastead, a floating platform allowing for habitation on the ocean's surface.  The award-winning designer will receive $1000 and free admission to the Seasteading '09 Conference in San Francisco, California.  

For rules and guidelines, click here.

Image above:  William Vandivert, photographer. American 9th Army Engineers Connect a New Section of a Treadway Pontoon Bridge across the Rhine River.  24 March 1945. © Time Inc.  Time Life hosted by Google.  URL: http://images.google.com/hosted/life

Ninety-Nine Actions

The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) has assembled a new exhibition, 99 Actions: What Can We Do with a City, which documents contemporary projects around the world.  Many of these projects focus on making use of abandonned and blighted properties, recycling and sustainability. Visitors to the exhibition's website are encouraged to comment on each project's ingenuity.  Some favorites are:

#9 Oranges Lead Nocturnal Walk (Fallen Fruit, California & New Mexico, USA)

#17 Tide Map Restores Public Beach (Los Angeles Urban Rangers, California, USA) -- Congrats, Nick!

#67 Wood Makes People Big as Cars (Hermann Knoflacher, Vienna, Austria)

#83  Sheep and Lambs Eat City Park (Department of Park Management, Turin, Italy)

New Orleans is represented by the award-winning #71  Vietnamese Farm Feeds New Orleans, a joint project of New Orleans East Residents, Mossop + Michaels Landscape Architects, and Mary Queen of Vietnam Community Development Corporation.   

If you want to submit your own ideas, check out the guidelines here.  WARNING:  Deadline is approaching soon!!!!

Recent Gift to the SEAA

The Southeastern Architectural Archive recently received a generous gift from Tulane School of Architecture Adjunct Faculty member Milton Scheuermann, the travel sketchbook of New Orleans architect Samuel Stanhope Labouisse, dated 1903-1904. Labouisse (1879-1918) was the founder and first president of the Louisiana Institute of Architects. His sketchbook documents his travels to western Europe from December 1903 to June 1904. Labouisse visited Amiens, Athens, Laon, Reims, Rome, Versailles, and Viterbo and sketched the architectural features of such sites as Reims Cathedral, the Villa Borghese, and the Athenian Acropolis. The canvas-lined sketchbook endpaper bears an inventory recording Labouisse's daily expenditures on lodging, entrance fees, meals, stamps and even champagne. One night's stay in Laon, France in 1904? $1.00!

Every year, the Tulane School of Architecture awards the Samuel Stanhope Labouisse Memorial Award for excellence in the documentation of historically significant Louisiana architecture. For more information, click here.

Samuel Stanhope Labouisse, Rose Window at Laon Cathedral, 24 June 1904. Graphite on paper. Recent gift of Milton Scheuermann to the Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Elevations

Last week, I posted some UPhO images of raised southwest Louisiana coastal houses, and this early twentieth-century Key West, Florida, photograph reminded me of them. It is one of nearly 5,000 images that comprise the Dale McDonald Collection that is available online via the Florida Memory/State Archives portal. McDonald (1949-2007), was a firefigher and photographer born in Key West, who amassed an extensive collection of photographs and slides.

Last year, architect Alison Brooks received the Manser Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) for her Essex Salt House, an elevated structure built on the floodplain of the North Sea. Brooks based her design -- which the RIBA judges praised as "breathtaking" -- on modernist post-War beach houses in the United States. To read/see more, click here.

Photograph: unidentified photographer. The House on Stilts, End of the NW Channel, undated. Florida Memory/State Archives of Florida. Viewed 25.11.2008. [URL: http://www.floridamemory.com/PhotographicCollection/index.cfm]

Building by the Letters II

Buildings that appeal to typographers: Japan's The Fukutake House, an art gallery space, which was featured in Business Week 25.05.2007.

Typographer Catherine Griffiths had this to say about the house:

"[It] was a well-executed design that harmonized typography and architecture with a feeling for space, scale, material, and form."

The design group FLAME, Inc. created the signage for the Fukutake House, which received a 2007 D&AD Award in its Typography/Graphic Design Category, given by the non-profit organization annually as reward for "outstanding creativity, mould-breaking thinking and the highest standard of design and innovation."

The D&AD Awards 2009 are now available for submission entries. They also offer awards in the category of Environmental Design. Click here for more information.

[Above: Fukutake House, press release photographs by Kozo Takayama, D&AD Awards 2007. URL: http://www.dandad.org/awards2007/entry.asp?entry_id=26915. Viewed 21 October 2008].

Lexicon: Sacs des sable entre poteaux

Thursday's Architects Newspaper features an article about this year's recipient of the University of Kentucky College of Design's Curry Stone Design Prize, which honors innovative achievement in humanitarian architecture and design.

The Cape Town, South Africa firm of MMA Architects won the $100,000 award for their 10x10 house, built for just over $6,000 with sandbags and timber. It's similar to local briquette-entre-poteaux. To read more, click here.

One could always plan for flooding in the spirit of historic relocatable beach structures, such as those featured on Pruned's blog.

[Photograph: MMA Architects, 10x10 House, 2008. University of Kentucky College of Design as it appears in Architects Newspaper 09.25.2008]