Atelier Curtis

In 1921, New Orleans architect-educator Nathaniel C. Curtis, Sr. (1881-1953) established a new studio for architectural instruction:

"The recently formed atelier of the Beaux Arts Institute of Design, organized among the draftsmen and junior architects of New Orleans for the purpose of studying the practical problems in architecture will begin to function in September. The atelier -- a studio club -- under the direction of N.C. Curtis, formerly professor of architecture in Tulane University, now associated with the office of M.H. Goldstein, architect, offers a course of systematic training in architectural design based on the regular programs issued by the institute from its headquarters in New York. The course is free, excepting for the annual registration fee of two dollars. No preliminary examinations of any kind are required but new students should have some skill in draftsmanship and a knowledge of the elements of architecture before proposing to affiliate with the atelier. . . Named after the originator of the organization here the Atelier will be known as the Atelier Curtis."

Building Review (August 1921): p. 12.

Tulane & the Beaux-Arts

In the second decade of the twentieth century, the Tulane Department of Architecture boasted its relationship to the Parisian École des Beaux Arts:

"The entrance requirements of the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris are exacting and specific. The departments of this famous school have a standing hardly equalled by any college elsewhere in the world. To be a student in the 'Ecole' is one of the highest honors that can come to the young Frenchman and it is an honor no less prized by those foreigners who seek to gain admission through its doors."

"Last year 500 Frenchmen and 185 foreigners took the entrance examinations. Of these 185 foreigners 7 were Americans. Three of these Americans were successful and it is gratifying to note that of those three, two had been students of the Tulane Department of Architecture, viz: Feitel, B., Arch, 1911, and Armstrong, a three year student."

From "Architectural Department" Building Review125 (1913-1914), p. 7. Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.