Walker Evans. New Orleans Classic Revival House in Rampart Street. Louisiana. December 1935. Copy Print, Miscellaneous Photographs Collection, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.
After reading Elizabeth Royte's Garbage Land recently, I have been thinking about ways in which refuse has been used in new ways. The Oxford (Oxfordshire, United Kingdom) City Museum collection includes a portion of early municipal paving that made use of slaughterhouse waste, oxen bones, primarily vertebrae (detail, shown above left).
Of course, other animal discards were employed for the building trade. The protein collagen, derived from fish, animal bone and skin, was utilized in baroque-era Poland as the binding compound in faux-marble stucco. In New Orleans and elsewhere in the United States, old plasterwork frequently contains horse hair as additional reinforcement. To read the National Park Service Preservation Brief on repairing historic flat plaster walls and ceilings, click here.
The New Orleans architectural firm of Curtis and Davis designed the Louisiana Power and Light Building on Algiers Point (completed 1966), which is the first tall structure one encounters when disembarking the ferry. Built at an estimated cost of $1.1 million, the building is sheathed in panels featuring intaglio square-ended serifs, repeating the company's initials. 
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) maintains an online Photograph Library that houses thousands of public domain images that cannot be copyrighted. The collection includes many images of New Orleans, especially in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Hôtel de Glace, Canada. ©Xdachez.com
Brazilian Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho was born 15 December 1907 and celebrated his 101st birthday yesterday. The architect-urbanist designed Brasília's Cathedral and National Congress and has recently been entrusted with refurbishing his Planalto Palace, the working office of the Brazilian president. Considered one of the last moderns, Niemeyer's stature has been predicated on a life-long capacity for work and an ability to reconcile modernism with Latin surrealism. 
The Institute for Humanities Research at Arizona State University (Tempe, AZ), which supports socially engaged interdisciplinary humanities research, invites applications for two visiting fellowships.
The Southeastern Architectural Archive has recently installed a new exhibition, Architext: The Unity of Architecture and Typography, co-curated by Keli Rylance and Kevin Williams.
In 1929, the Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Steel Company maintained a district office in New Orleans. Located in the Maison Blanche Building at 921 Canal Street, Carnegie Steel promoted its improvements to structural steel with the development of Carnegie Beam Sections in the spring of 1927:
The University of Wisconsin's Art History Department has made available over 4,000 images from its slide library. The Casselman Archive contains images of medieval and early modern Spain taken by the late Eugene Casselman (1912-1996) during his thirty years of travel throughout the Iberian peninsula. The images span over one thousand years of architectural history, from the seventh to the seventeenth century. The majority of the slides focus on the Mudejar and Visigothic styles. To access the digital collection, click here.
Shown above is his image of the Churrigueresque West Facade (Obradorio) of Santiago de Compostela, undated.
The oldest book in the collection of the Garden Library of the New Orleans Town Gardeners, a special research space housed in the Southeastern Architectural Archive, is by Nicolas de Bonnefons, the valet du chambre of King Louis XIV (1638-1715). He first published his Le Jardinier François in Paris in 1651. It was a vastly popular book and numerous editions appeared through the early eighteenth century. British diarist John Evelyn translated the work in 1658 and referred to it as "the first and best [. . .] that introduced the use of the olitoire [i.e. kitchen] garden." Comparative Emergency Management: Examining Global and Regional Responses to Disasters
[The editors are extending the deadline for this call to seek potential chapter contributions with a primary focus on the Caribbean, Central America, South America, and the South Pacific Regions]
Comparative Emergency Management: Examining Global and Regional Responses to Disasters
DeMond Miller, Rowan University, USA and Jason Rivera, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, USA
Publisher: Auerbach/Taylor and Francis Publishers
Comparative Emergency Management: Examining Global and Regional Responses to Disasters, an edited volume, will encompass a dialogue regarding the impact of natural and human-induced disasters. The book will illustrate how initiating long-term regional collaborations on issues of natural disaster risk reduction and hazard risk management help build resiliency. Its main objectives are to 1) take stock of the current status of disaster management systems across regions and countries, 2) promote an integrated approach to disaster risk reduction and 3) encourage new synergies and partnerships between governments to better address disaster prevention. The book will also provide an opportunity for participants to discuss future needs and priorities in an effort to strengthen disaster risk reduction in their respective countries and the region as a whole.
The editors highly encourage case studies and will consider a mixed methods approach among the chapters.
Send a title, an abstract and brief (3 - 5 page double-spaced) chapter proposal, in English, by Saturday January 31, 2009 to: DeMond Miller at millerd@rowan.edu.
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!
iCI's touring exhibition Experimental Geography, curated by Nato Thompson, may interest architects and others who share an admiration for experimental approaches to the idea of geography: