Mushroom System

In September 1914, the New Orleans architectural firm of Toledano, Wogan and Bernard was completing a new skyscraper in the Central Business District, the Johns-Manville Building (441 Gravier Street/225 Magazine Street).  The building employed a recently patented flat-slab construction system that allowed for thinner slabs, broader spans, and reduced shear. Minneapolis-based engineer Claude Allen Porter (C.A.P.) Turner (1869-1955) developed the system  after years working as a railroad bridge engineer for the Soo Line.

Turner's first documented mushroom system building was the Johnson-Bovey in Minneapolis (1906; razed). Milwaukee's Hoffman building (now Marshall) was completed the following year.(1)

In New Orleans, there was considerable interest in the Turner Mushroom System. J.T. Mann & Company was Turner's southern agent, and envisioned the Johns-Manville building its prototype.  The locally-published Building Review reported to the Louisiana Chapter of the American Institute of Architects:

"The building is the highest of its kind in this city and is of the Turner Mushroom system construction. It is fireproof, has a modern sprinkling system, extensive fire extinguishing devices and automatic door shutters. The walls of the building are stuccoed, trimmed with press brick and polychromatic terra cotta, models of which were colored in the architect's office, giving a general color scheme that presents a composition of refinement and good taste. The average test of the floors have proven a loading capacity of 600 pounds to the square foot in spans averaging 20x20 feet with a deflection of not more and in some cases much less than 1-8 of an inch."

(1) In 2002, the American Society of Civil Engineers declared it a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.

(2) "A New Turner Mushroom System Building." Building Review (19 September 1914), p. 8.

Images above: C.A.P. Turner, consulting engineer. Column Top Detail, Johns-Mansville Bldg., New Orleans, LA. Blueprint.  Toledano, Wogan & Bernard Office Records; "Testing Floor Load in the New Johns-Manville Mushroom System Building." Photographic reproduction. Building Review (19 September 1914), p. 8. Both Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

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.

Neutra in NOLA

On Monday, 17 November 1952, Austrian-born architect Richard Neutra (1892-1970) gave an evening address at Newcomb College's Dixon Hall. Co-sponsored by the Tulane University School of Architecture and the New Orleans Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, the public lecture focused on contemporary architecture.

The Newcomb College Art Gallery had displayed photographs of Neutra's projects ten years earlier, in conjunction with an educational exhibit on the theme of surfaces, textures and colors of structural materials. Local merchants loaned samples of brick, wood, metal, glass and stone.

Read more in "Architect Neutra to Deliver Address." The Times-Picayune 17 November 1952, p. 7. "Exhibit at College Art Gallery Nears." The Times-Picayune 15 April 1941, p. 12. W.M. Darling, "Pen, Chisel and Brush." The Times-Picayune 20 April 1941, p. 40.

Hurricanes, Oil & Architecture

In February 1967, Morgan City architect Lloyd J. Guillory (born 1925) addressed the coastal region's new modernist architecture that was increasingly made possible by oil wealth:

"Architecture has always been affected by various external forces beyond the control of the architect, and here in the region of the newly formed Coastal Section of the A.I.A. there are two such forces -- oil and hurricanes. They present a challenge, either singularly or together, to test the imagination and mettle of any practicing architect. Although the oil industry has had no direct influence on architecture, as far as this writer can determine, the affluence which accompanied this remarkable industry has indeed affected our profession in this area. It has enabled us to design and erect structures which never could have been built without such wealth, as is evidenced by the Morgan City Auditorium, the largest in the country for a community of its size.

The building boom which accompanied the oil industry has also produced an unbelievable number of bad buildings, as usually occurs in any booming area. Here 'pre-fab steel' is by far the largest culprit. The lack of adequate zoning restrictions and inadequate master planning is also profusely in evidence. But, these factors make the role of the architect more necessary and definitely more challenging.

The other major force, hurricanes, had a rather negligible influence on architecture prior to hurricanes Hilda and Besty. But, after these two 150 mile per hour monsters slammed into the coast in a period of eleven months, the results dictated the future of this area in a dramatic way. The fear which accompanied these great natural disasters caused a mass exodus unequalled in modern history. We found, to our dismay, that the dangers and discomfort of these evacuations were almost as bad as staying behind to face the winds. The inadequacies of the highway system to evacuate such a large mass and the uncertainties of lodging accommodations in other cities presented great discomforts and dangers themselves. It became dramatically apparent during Betsy that with only one highway running east and west, as it does in Morgan City, there is no right way to run and be assured you are going away from the storm. If you wait long enough to make sure, you have waited too long. I mention this only to emphasize that here the architect enters into a strange and unusual role as the man responsible for the answer to this monumental problem. "

To read more, see his article "The New Architecture of Coastal Louisiana" in Louisiana Architect 6 (February 1967): pp. 9-11. The journal is available in the Louisiana Research Collection, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Architect Cites Automotive Grip

As written by Glenn Fowler for The New York Times 24 June 1959, p. 48:

New Orleans, June 23 -- Automobile makers and the motor oil producers were challenged today to help the nation's cities fight their way out of an automotive stranglehold.

Edward D. Stone, a New York architect whose designs in recent years have earned him a world reputation, depicted the plight of major urban centers in the United States as the result of failure to realize that "the automobile and the pedestrian cannot be mixed."

"Since the horseless carriage is largely responsible for our troubles, and we are a country that eulogizes free enterprise," he said, "why hasn't it occurred to the great oil and automotive industries to try to resolve some of the problems they have created? Why can't they be shamed into financing studies on the planning of our towns and cities?"

Mr. Stone made his plea at the convention of the American Institute of Architects at the Roosevelt Hotel.

The designer of the United States pavilion at last year's Brussels World Fair and of many other well known buildings in this country and abroad also came out strongly for establishment of a Cabinet post in the Federal Government to deal with urban problems.

In his endorsement of his proposal, which has been made by several groups of planners, city officials and private citizens in the last few years, Mr. Stone stressed what he referred to as the imbalance in our present governmental arrangement between rural and urban interests.

"We need a Cabinet official corresponding to the Secretary of Agriculture," he said, "with outposts in every state, and with architects and planners whose task it would be to guide communities, just as the Agriculture Department's state and county agents have educated the farmer."

Mr. Stone urged architects to take the lead in promoting greater official use of planning tools. He chided them for wasting energy on intramural matters while they might better, in his view, be doing missionary work among the public at large and the country's officialdom.

If architects followed the course, he said, "we would not be wasting our effort on creating precious prototypes for our own personal satisfaction, in the midst of chaos, but rather adding individual and brilliant buildings in a well-ordered plan for our country as a whole."

He said architects themselves were to blame for what he termed a loss of status of their profession.

Read more via Pro-Quest Historical Newspapers.