Rice & Tulane: Sociable Dalliance

In the autumn of 1912, William Woodward (1859-1939) -- Tulane University Professor & founder of its Architecture School -- was delegated to attend the opening of the Rice Institute. With an estimated endowment of $10 million, the fledgling institution had contracted with Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson to design the campus plan and its buildings.

When Woodward returned to New Orleans, he reported on the buildings and their architect:

"The buildings of the Rice Institute of Houston Texas are genuine marks of Architectural Art, as I found on my recent visit there to participate in the formal opening as representative of the American Federation of Arts of Washington, D.C.

Three buildings of the large number provided for on the spacious campus are completed, or nearly so, and are widely separated -- The Administration building, the Power plant with mechanical laboratories and one group for men's residence composed of dormitories and commons.

As to what style no attempt at description would be adequate without many illustrations of details, but it can be said that one feels at once that the whole has been studied and erected under the eye of an architect who could realize his conceptions in sound construction.

I had the good fortune to be taken to the Institute by Mr. Cram of the firm of Cram, Goodhue and Ferguson, the architects, and his resident assistant Mr. Watkin, and thus can say first hand that Mr. Cram has aimed to construct in the best materials for each purpose and he is best pleased, perhaps, in the placing of the bricks, which are of a mellow color, brightened by inlays of marble and glazed tiles of varying and unique shapes. The cement courses are often wide enough to give the idea of banded work.

Mr. Cram was pleased when I jestingly spoke of the 'elocution' of the facade of the men's residence before which we stood. The sociable dalliance of the banded columns of the arcade on the ground, the serene wall rising above, accented with convenient balconies and crowned with sheltering eaves appeals at once. As might be expected the hardware and fixtures are all unique and pleasingly hand wrought in many cases. To a professor, one of the points of interest is the seating of the faculty chamber which has benches facing each other across the central aisle, as in a choir. Mr. Cram's sensitive eye was disturbed by the flare of crudely colored 'near' banners, which overwhelmed his color scheme in this chamber, and which had evidently been put up before his arrival. The only address or paper on Art was Mr. Cram's paper read one night at 2:30 A.M. when his audience had been reduced to almost a state of stupor by the events of the day and night."

William Woodward. [untitled article]. Architectural Art and Its Allies 8:3 (September 1912), p. 8 . The Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries. Emphasis my own.

Field Trip: Annapolis, Maryland

In 1957-58, Austrian-born architect Richard Neutra (1892-1970) designed the 99,000-square-foot Mellon Hall and Frances Scott Keys Auditorium at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. Although St. John's College and surrounding Annapolis are permeated with colonial-era architecture, Richard Weigle, then St. John's College president, wanted a structure that embodied the very finest in modern architecture. Neutra offered the services of his California-based firm Neutra + Alexander for less than its normal fee. He conducted research on campus by soliciting input from faculty and students, studying the school's classic-books curriculum and attending its Socratic method classes.

The building was renowned in its day for its environmentally-conscious motor-operated aluminum louvers that could control incoming natural light according to external conditions.

In 2002, the Great Books college completed a $12.9 restoration project on the structure.

In other Neutra news, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia has halted the National Park Service's plans to demolish Neutra + Alexander's 1961 Cyclorama Building. Read more here.

Images above: Richard Neutra, architect. Courtyard of Mellon Hall, St. John's College, Annapolis, Maryland. Completed 1959. As photographed 10 April 2010 by K. Rylance.

Tulane Places

In 1984, Malcolm J. Heard, Jr. and Bernard Lemann collaborated to create a comprehensive guide to Tulane University's campus buildings and research repositories. Incorporating drawings from the Southeastern Architectural Archive, the publication surveyed Tulane's expansion from its origins as the Medical College of Louisiana (1834), which became the University of Louisiana and ultimately Tulane.

Heard and Lemann included a university map that plotted the buildings within four discrete campus units: the Front Campus, the Newcomb Quads, the Middle Campus, and the Rear Campus. They identified each structure by architect(s)/firm(s), completion date, function, and distinctive features.

Nathaniel C. Curtis, Sr., working for Moise Goldstein & Associates, designed Joseph Merrick Jones Hall (1941), the SEAA's home. The structure originally housed the university library, named Howard-Tilton Library. Historic printers' devices -- such as the Golden Compass of Plantin Press -- were carved into the Freret Street entrance. In 1971, architect Harold E. Pique converted the building into Tulane's Law School. When the latter moved to its new building in the late 1990s, Jones Hall once again became a library, housing the university's special collections materials, including its expanding architectural archives.

Image above: Cover of Malcolm J. Heard, Jr. and Bernard Lemann's Tulane Places. New Orleans, Tulane University, 1984. Available at Tulane University Libraries.