Chisholm Trail

Kansas State University is celebrating the legendary cattle trail’s sesquicentennial with a notable exhibit featuring historic books, music, photographs, maps, cowboy attire and artifacts. “Chisholm Trail: History & Legacy” is a collaboration between the Libraries’ Morse Department of Special Collections, the K-State College of Human Ecology’s Historic Costume & Textile Museum, and the Kansas City Museum.

The exhibit focuses on Kansas cattle towns, trailblazers, ranchers, farmers, drovers, lawmen and outlaws. It includes historic railroad and Indian Bureau maps, wood engravings, stereocards, advertisements and first-hand accounts of the trail that brought Texas cattle to Kansas markets.

The free exhibit runs through October 13, 2017 in Hale Library's Fifth Floor Gallery.

Kansas State University Libraries is home to William J. Keeler's incredibly scarce 1876 National Map of the Territory of the United States from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean (detail above). Printed under the authority of then-Secretary of the Interior Orville Hickman Browning (1806-1881), the map documents the locations of tribal and ceded territories, leases and trusts. It reveals the westward expansion of the nation's Public Land Survey System, its overland mail route and its railways.

Map, detailed above:

William J. Keeler. National Map of the Territory of the United States from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean Made by the authority of the Hon. O.H. Browning Secretary of the Interior. In the Office of the Indian Bureau Chiefly for Government Purposes under the direction of the Hon. N.G. Taylor Commise. of Indian affairs & Hon. Chas. E. Mix Chief Clerk of the Indian Bureau. 1876. Detail. Richard L. D. & Marjorie J. Morse Department of Special Collections, Kansas State University Libraries.

Merry Travels/Holidays!

In 1939, Laura Mae Gumb of Hope, North Dakota took a long rail journey with her best friend Alice Curtis. They wanted to visit the New York World's Fair and see Washington, D.C. In the process, they celebrated the retirement of a 70-year-old Great Northern railroad engineer (above), ventured to Chinatown, and remarked on the wonders they saw. They drank cocktails at the Diamond Horseshoe and the Savoy.  They also seemingly stole a lot of restaurant menus, napkins and ashtrays. They met travelers from all over the world.

May your travels and festivities this season be equally remarkable!

New Orleans State of Mind (1940)

According to various reports, New Orleans architecture was a big hit in New York during the spring of 1940.

Bourbon Street's Old Absinthe House Bar (shown above) was reproduced at the World's Fair in Flushing Meadows. Lucien J. Cazebonne claimed that the reproduction was an exact copy of the original bar. The facsimile was erected in the "Gay Old New Orleans" section of Michael Todd's show featuring Gypsy  Rose Lee.(1)

In Manhattan, architect Max Bohm and painter Tony Sarg remodeled a Greenwich Village tenement row to resemble the Vieux Carre:

"Wide bands of ornamental iron connecting the tiers of balconies at each end and at regular intervals have built up in the mind the idea that they are not just emergencies to be used in the event of fire but are a substantial part of each apartment. The balconies are wide as well as long. The suspended flower baskets also help to fix in the mind the New Orleans atmosphere.

"Just inside the entrance door which is not in the center of the facade but slightly off to one side, are murals, scenes of New Orleans. The old Absinthe House is detected in one corner of the group. Sketches of doors leading into interior courts and arcaded sidewalks near Jackson Square cover one wall panel. On the opposite side of the river is a view of a Mississippi river packet discharging cotton on the levees. This serves to introduce the lobby, which runs parallel to the front of the building. Iron grille, stone flooring, hanging balconies, arches and one large palm complete the picture."(2)

The New York Herald-Tribune lauded Jane Street apartment owner Arthur Rule's taste.

(1)"Orleanian Goes to New York to Show Famed Bar." The Times-Picayune 10 May 1940.

(2)"New Orleans Features Used to Make New York Rehabilitation Distinctive." The Times-Picayune 21 April 1940.

Image above: Walter Cook Keenan. Old Absinthe House. 238 Bourbon Street, New Orleans, LA. 18 November 1944. This and other Bourbon Street photographs are online via Tulane University Digital Library's Bourbon Street, 1944-1952.

New Orleans Brewing (1893)

The New Orleans Brewing Association promoted the city's beers at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois. Its exhibit featured an enormous beer bottle rising up from a pyramid of kegs, bottles and palms, and hard-working gnomes gathering wheat/making beer, and a celebratory gnome raising a frothy glass. Images of the association's "Perfection" and "Louisiana" lagers (shown above) and "Pilsener" were utilized in its printed announcement.

The association included a wood engraving showing off its various brewing plants as though they occupied the same site (shown above). The Crescent City, Louisiana, Pelican, Southern and Weckerling's operations are identified by signage.

By 1901, the Crescent and the Southern were both closed and Chicago brewing concerns were interested in absorbing the remaining plants.(1)

(1)"An Attempt to Absorb the Local Breweries." The Daily Picayune 26 June 1901.

Images above: New Orleans Brewing Association. World's Fair 1893: Exhibit of the New Orleans Brewing Ass'n at Chicago. New Orleans: 1893. Architectural Trade Catalogs, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Of Dungeons & Manuscripts

In planning the Southeastern Architectural Archive's Medieval Louisiana exhibit, we came across a number of relevant historic news items. This mention in The Christian Observer dated 19 March 1840 piqued our curiosity:

Dungeons of the Inquisition in New Orleans

"A curious discovery has been made by some workmen employed in erecting houses on the site of the old Calaboose. That ancient building, which dates far back into Spanish times, was recently pulled down, and the ground on which it stood sold out to private individuals. The purchasers immediately commenced improvements upon the property, being valuable, from its location in the centre of the city. In the course of operations to this effect, it was found necessary to dig several feet under the surface, to lay a substratum for the walls of the houses about to be built. The labourers, in excavating at a particular spot, discovered that their progress was retarded by some hard substance, which resisted any impression from the working tools."

* * *

The Daily Picayune had reported on the discovery one month earlier:

The Subterranean Vaults

"The excavations into the old vaults discovered behind the calaboose were continued yesterday and the chain gang were employed digging out the mud and rubbish. Nothing was found that could lead to any knowledge of their history and after digging about six feet into a strongly arched passage the workmen were stopped by an iron door, and the labor was abandoned until to-day, when the search will be continued.

"An old creole woman, upwards of a hundred years of age, it is said remembers that upon this spot stood a building in which Jesuits resided; and the most plausible supposition that can be arrived at, is, that these strong vaults were prepared as places of deposite for valuable manuscripts and other precious things, in case of war or other danger placing their establishment in jeopardy. That they were designed for some more than ordinary purpose is evident from the massive iron archings, and careful mason work used in their construction. The very fact of an apartment being built under ground in our soil, is sufficient evidence that it was designed for no common purpose; and it is also probable, although anxious precaution may have led to the construction of those vaults, that no urgent necessity ever called for their use. At any rate they should be thoroughly examined, not merely to satisfy the natural curiosity of the public, but the search should not cease while even the slightest probability exists of anything strange or secret being brought to light. If they are covered now, without their history being unfolded, they may be opened again in a succeeding century, and mystery may then assume what shape she pleases, bidding defiance to scrutiny. It will take but little labor to explore these recesses carefully, and a single relic found would amply repay investigation. They should be searched at any rate, that false constructions may not be left to perplex the public mind."

* * *

The Editor of the New Orleans Bulletin was allowed access to the excavation site, and The New Yorker picked up his report:

Discovery of An Inquisition

"'We found that considerable progress had been made in the excavation since our visit two days previous. The water and mud were drained out by means of a fire engine so as to expose the upper section of the cell, the bottom being still covered with mire and rubbish three feet deep. On a temporary bridge of scantling we descended under the arch, so as to have a fair prospect of all that could be seen. The vault may be described as a cell arched over with brick walls and ribs of iron, about seven feet in altitude, and as many broad. On three sides, it is entirely shut in by solid masonry and iron bars.

"'The only outlet is on the side facing the South. Here a narrow arched passage opens into the vault. The floor of the passage is on the same level with that of the main apartment. The height is not so great, being about six feet, and the breadth about two feet and a half. The dimensions were large enough to permit the transit of a man of ordinary size, without difficulty. The extent of the arched recess or passage leading from the vault, has not been ascertained. It runs horizontally in a southern direction, and can be traced a distance of ten feet or more under the ground. The excavation will have to be carried on still farther before the subterranean apartments can be fully explored.'"


If you are wondering about the appearance of colonial structures,  you may want to consult the University of North Carolina's Research Laboratories of Archaeology portal.

A January 1730 plan, section and elevation of New Orleans prisons has been digitized by the Archives nationales d'outre-mer here.

The old calaboose referred to above was located in the general vicinity of Exchange Alley, the Second Municipal District, Square 44.


Quoted matter above:

"Dungeons of the Inquisition in New Orleans." Christian Observer 19 March 1840. Accessed via American Periodicals database.

"The Subterranean Vaults." The Daily Picayune 19 February 1840. Accessed via America's Historical Newspapers database.

"Discovery of An Inquisition." The New Yorker 7 March 1840. Accessed via American Periodicals database.

NEW EXHIBIT: MEDIEVAL LOUISIANA

From Tulane University’s Southeastern Architectural Archive:

The Southeastern Architectural Archive’s Medieval Louisiana exhibit focuses on the region’s adoption of Byzantine, Romanesque, Hispano-Moresque and Gothic architectural forms and motifs. From the antebellum period through the early twentieth century, a wide range of religious, commercial, civic and domestic structures were built and decorated in various historic revival styles. Architects as diverse as James Gallier, William Freret, James Freret, Benjamin Morgan Harrod, Thomas Sully and Moise Goldstein referenced medieval material culture for their Louisiana clients.

In honor of Milton Scheuermann, Jr.’s retirement from the Tulane School of Architecture, this exhibit draws on the holdings of the Southeastern Architectural Archive and the Garden Library of the New Orleans Town Gardeners.  It includes gifts from the Christ Church Cathedral, John Geiser III, Sylvester Labrot, Genevieve Munson Trimble, the New Orleans Town Gardeners and the Tulane School of Architecture.   

Co-curated by Keli Rylance and Kevin Williams, MEDIEVAL LOUISIANA opens 13 July in the Southeastern Architectural Archive (SEAA) and runs through 20 May 2016.  The SEAA is located at 6801 Freret Street/300 Jones Hall, on Tulane University’s campus.  Hours are 9-12 and 1-5 Mondays-Fridays.  Admission is free.  

Image above:  James Freret, architect. A Design for the New Masonic Hall, New Orleans, LA. 1867. James Freret Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

House of Tomorrow (1957)

Fifty-eight years ago, the New Orleans Home Show focused on the theme  "Operation Home Improvement" (OHI). Staged in the Municipal Auditorium, OHI included a model home designed by Curtis & Davis  (shown above).

Walter J. Rooney, Jr. represented the firm in a related article for The Times-Picayune:

"The display house is erected in a landscaped patio enclosed in a woven bamboo fence and providing the ultimate in outdoor living facilities. To one side of the kitchen is a barbecue terrace, on the other side the children's play terrace, both connected to the kitchen by sliding glass walls, between the dining and living room likes the living terrace. All terraces have flagstone floors and are set in a bower of tropical plants.

"The main entrance to the display is by way of a ramp which rises from the auditorium floor on the exterior of the landscaped court. As one climbs the ramp the various elements come into view: The living room unit hovers lightly a few feet above the garden terrace on slim metal supports which rise through the floor slab to a brightly colored plastic roof above--a tremendous skylight."


*******

"A backward glance at the building makes the structure and construction readily apparent. Light steel columns and beams frame the building and support the flat planes of floor and roof. The steel panels which form the floor and roof are corrugated to achieve maximum strength with a minimum of material and provide an exciting ceiling finish in all the rooms."(1)

(1)"Architect Describes 'Trip' Through Show's House of Tomorrow." The Times-Picayune 18 May 1957.

Images above: Frank Lotz Miller, photographer. Curtis and Davis, architects. House of Tomorrow, Operation Home Improvement, Home Show, Municipal Auditorium, New Orleans, LA. May 1957. Curtis and Davis Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

BUNGALOWS Closing Month

The Southeastern Architectural Archive's Bungalows exhibit will be closing next month. If you have not yet had a chance to stop by the archive's reading room, consider doing so. The exhibit is the first such to focus on Gulf Coast vernacular bungalow and cottage architecture. Issues of stylistic and typological adaptation, sustainability and climate-specific design are highlighted with the use of original architectural drawings, historic photographs, building trade catalogs, material samples and subdivision surveys. The focus of the exhibit is on regional innovation and adaptation.

Co-curated by Keli Rylance and Kevin Williams, BUNGALOWS  runs through 20 May 2015.  The SEAA is located at 6801 Freret Street/300 Jones Hall, on Tulane University’s campus.  Hours are 9-12 and 1-5 Mondays-Fridays. Admission is free.

Image above:  FAB-RIK-O-NA. Cloth Wall Coverings. Bloomfield, New Jersey, circa 1923.

TU Grad Magill Smith

 

In 1938, Tulane University graduate Charles Magill Smith (1904-41) designed the Beech-Nut Packing Company's exhibition building for the New York World's Fair (model shown above).  A native of Franklin, Louisiana, Smith moved to New York upon the completion of his Bachelors of Architecture degree  (1926).  He established an independent practice, operating as Magill Smith. In 1929, he married Mexican socialite Elizabeth Consuelo de Cravioto in New York.

Smith's Beech-Nut building included an electrically-operated miniature circus replete with acrobats and animals. Its entrance was adorned with a colorful circus mural, and the interior featured dioramas and photographs representing coffee cultivation and the gathering of chicle. Sets of twin girls greeted fair-goers with candy and gum.

Smith also designed the Botany Worsted Mills exhibit in The Man Building, and renovated 20 West 12th Street, where he lived with his wife prior to their separation. His career was cut short by his suicide in December 1941.

Image above:  Wurts Brothers, photographers. C. Magill Smith, architect. Model of the Beech-Nut Packing Company building, New York World's Fair. 1938. Gelatin silver print. Wurts Bros. Collection. Museum of the City of New York.  As viewed 6 November 2014.

NEW EXHIBIT: BUNGALOWS

The Southeastern Architectural Archive’s Bungalows exhibit is the first such to focus on Gulf Coast  vernacular bungalow and cottage architecture.  Issues of stylistic and typological adaptation, sustainability and climate-specific design are highlighted with the use of original architectural drawings, historic photographs, building trade catalogs, material samples and subdivision surveys. The focus of the exhibit is on regional innovation and adaptation.

The exhibit draws on the holdings of the Southeastern Architectural Archive, the Garden Library of the New Orleans Town Gardeners, the William Ransom Hogan Jazz Archive, the Louisiana Research Collection and the Tulane Legacy Collection.  The exhibit includes architectural drawings recently conserved with the generous support of the Marjorie Peirce Geiser and John Geiser, Jr. Fund for the Southeastern Architectural Archive and the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library’s Preservation Unit.

Co-curated by Keli Rylance and Kevin Williams, BUNGALOWS  opens 16 May  in the Southeastern Architectural Archive (SEAA) and runs through 20 May 2015.  The SEAA is located at 6801 Freret Street/300 Jones Hall, on Tulane University’s campus.  Hours are 9-12 and 1-5 Mondays-Fridays. Admission is free.

Above:

Martin Shepard, architect.  Bungalow for Miss Celia [Cecilia] Dunn. 
Claiborne Avenue. New Orleans, LA.
Pencil and colored pencil on tracing paper.  29 May 1915.
Martin Shepard Office Records.

The 1915 construction of the South Claiborne Avenue streetcar line encouraged speculative house building. Times-Picayune writer Flo Field proclaimed, “A cow moos softly in the sunshine. There will be blackberries—maybe—in the hedges in May. Well, it is a great chance for the bungalow!”

Shepard developed this plan for Marks Isaacs milliner Cecilia Dunn.

Bellocq & Beyond

The Southeastern Architectural Archive has opened a new exhibit  -- Bellocq and Beyond -- on the occasion of the recent conservation of Ernest J. Bellocq’s photograph of The Real Estate Exchange Building (1913). Tulane University preservation librarian Annie Peterson stewarded the conservation, which was undertaken at the Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC). 

The exhibit features architectural photographs by Bellocq, C. Milo Williams, George Mugnier, John Teunisson, Morgan Whitney, W.C. Odiorne, Frances B. Johnston, Eugene Delcroix, Richard Koch, Clarence John Laughlin, Walter Cook Keenan, Frank Lotz Miller & Betsy Swanson. 

It will be up through 20 February 2014 in the SEAA Reading Room, Joseph Merrick Jones Hall 300, Tulane University's Uptown Campus. Read Ryan Rivet's Tulane New Wave feature on the exhibit here.

Images above:  

Ernest J. Bellocq, Dr.  Invoice to Architect Martin Shepard. 1913.

Ernest J. Bellocq, photographer.  The Real Estate Exchange Building, 311 Baronne Street, New Orleans, Louisiana. 1913. [Detail]

Both from the Martin Shepard Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

NOLA Cultural Center 1963

As part of the new exhibit at the Southeastern Architectural Archive, we have featured this presentation drawing of the proposed Cultural Center for New Orleans. Designed by local architects Mathes, Bergman, Favrot & Associates, the project was conceived as a part of a "downtown triangle" development project that included the Civic Center and International Trade Mart Complex. Modeled after New York's Lincoln Center, the Cultural Center was intended to consist of theaters, an auditorium, an art museum, community facilities, and copious parking lots.

With an estimated cost of $18 million, the plaza was to extend from the Orleans-Basin Connection to St. Philip Street, and from N. Rampart to N. Villere Streets. Widespread site clearance began in 1966, after the relocation of 122 families. Hampered by financial shortfalls, the CC was delayed and eventually abandoned.

If you want to learn more about the project and the history of Louis Armstrong Park, read Michael Crutcher's new Tremé: Race and Place in a New Orleans Neighborhood. The author will be reading from his book 21 April 2011 at 6:00 pm, Octavia Books, New Orleans. Click here to learn more.

Image above: Mathes, Bergman, Favrot & Associates.

Cultural Center of New Orleans. Scheffer Studio. 1963. Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

New Orleans Architecture in Moscow 1958

An earlier post addressed Charles Colbert's Phillis Wheatley Elementary School and its inclusion in the important 1958 US State Department/American Institute of Architects "Cities U.S.A." Exhibition in Moscow, which was part of the 5th Congress of the Union Internationale des Architectes. Colbert's work was selected along with projects by Pietro Belluschi, Marcel Breuer, Eero Saarinen, SOM, Mies van der Rohe, TAC, & Minoru Yamasaki. The New Orleans firms of Freret & Wolf/Andry & Feitel/Ricciuti, Stoffle & Associates also contributed photographic documentation of their Tulane University Women's Graduate Dormitory Building, Johnston Hall, which had garnered international acclaim (razed).

Image above: William Wilson Atkin, Booklet for "Cities U.S.A." Exhibition, Moscow 1958. Folder 1956, Freret & Wolf Collection, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Tulane University Libraries.

Read more about the dormitory in Architectural Forum 104 (April 1956): pp. 154-159.

Field Trip: Helsinki, Finland

The Suomen Rakennustaiteen Museo (Museum of Finnish Architecture) is Finland's national architectural archive, library and museum. Located in an 1899 neoclassical structure designed by Magnus Schjerfbeck (1860-1933), the museum hosts rotating exhibitions and serves as a contact for scheduling local architectural tours.

"Finnish Architecture 0809" (shown above) is an exhibition designed by architect Roy Mänttäri, a juried biennial survey of award-winning and innovative structures. It includes the work of Heikkinen-Komonen Architects, their Hämeenlinna Provincial Archive (2009), with its grey street facade that incorporates graphic design elements extracted from archival documents (image below); and a portable solid timber sauna (Kyly Sauna, Roseborg) by Avanti Architects Ltd. Jurors for the exhibition were Heikki Aitoaho, Selina Anttinen, and Johan Celsing.

Paper Engineering

The Smithsonian Libraries have launched a new exhibition featuring the art of paper engineering, exemplified in books with moving parts, including peep shows, volvelles, concertinas and pop-up books. Since the fifteenth century, books with moving parts have been used as pedagogical and documentary tools. At the Smithsonian, viewers may examine the structural components of over 50 pop-up and movable books that demonstrate the diverse methods designers and paper engineers use to transform two-dimensional imagery into multi-dimensional forms.

This exhibition also features two interactive videos, a series of lectures by paper engineers and collectors and an online blog:http://smithsonianlibraries.si.edu/foldpullpopturn/

Cuban artist Carlos Garaicoa Manso (b. 1967) designs panoramic pop-up books of cities, reconceiving modern architecture to address contemporary politics and ideologies. His work was featured in the 2007 University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum exhibition Homing Devices and can be viewed online via: http://www.usfcam.usf.edu/media.html#Homing. On 23 August 2010, USF CAM will open a new Garaicoa exhibition, Carlos Garaicoa: La enmienda que hay en mí (Making Amends). Watch for updates on USF CAM's home page.

Phrenology: Step In

Urbanologist Max Grinnell tipped me off to a fantastic new photography exhibition at Atlanta's High Museum. The U.S. Rural Electrification Administration and the U.S. Housing Authority commissioned Danish-born photographer Peter Sekaer (1901-1950) to document rural locales and workers during the Great Depression. 87 of his silver-gelatin prints, including the one reproduced above, are on display in the High's "Signs of Life: The Photographs of Peter Sekaer" through 9 January 2011.

The New Orleans phrenologist's sign boasts that she "reads your head like an open book" and "speks servel langues."

Image above: Peter Sekaer, Phrenologist's Office Window, New Orleans, 1936. © Peter Sekaer Estate

Exhibiting Quarantine

Storefront for Art and Architecture has opened a new exhibition, titled Landscapes of Quarantine (10 March - 17 April), curated by Future Plural and designed by Glen Cummings. From the exhibition website:

"Landscapes of Quarantine features new works by a multi-disciplinary group of eighteen artists, designers, and architects, each of whom was inspired by one or more of the physical, biological, ethical, architectural, social, political, temporal, and even astronomical dimensions of quarantine.

At its most basic, quarantine is a strategy of separation and containment—the creation of a hygienic boundary between two or more things, for the purpose of protecting one from exposure to the other. It is a spatial response to suspicion, threat, and uncertainty. From Chernobyl’s Zone of Exclusion and the artificial quarantine islands of the New York archipelago to camp beds set up to house HIV-positive Haitian refugees detained at Guantánamo and the modified Airstream trailer from within which Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins once waved at President Nixon, the landscapes of quarantine are various, mutable, and often unexpected.

Typically, quarantine is thought of in the context of disease control. It is used to isolate people who have been exposed to a contagious virus or bacteria and, as a result, may (or may not) be carrying the infection themselves. But quarantine does not apply only to people and animals. Its boundaries can be set up for as long as needed, creating spatial separation between clean and dirty, safe and dangerous, healthy and sick, foreign and native—however those labels are defined.

As a result, the practice of quarantine extends far beyond questions of epidemic control and pest-containment strategies to touch on issues of urban planning, geopolitics, international trade, ethics, immigration, and more. And although the practice dates back at least to the arrival of the Black Death in medieval Venice, if not to Christ’s 40 days in the desert, quarantine has re-emerged as an issue of urgency and importance in today’s era of globalization, antibiotic resistance, emerging diseases, pandemic flu, and bio-terrorism.

Landscapes of Quarantine began with an eight-week independent design studio directed by Geoff Manaugh and Nicola Twilley of Future Plural. Each Tuesday evening, from October to December 2009, a multi-disciplinary group of studio participants met to discuss the spatial implications of quarantine and develop their own creative response: the resulting work forms the core of theLandscapes of Quarantine exhibition."

New Orleans, of course, has a long tradition of quarantine. The Mississippi River south of the city had various quarantine stations established, an elaborate system that changed over the decades. Tulane's Lousiana Research Collection, a division of Special Collections, retains a fine map of the late nineteenth-century quarantine system in S.R Olliphant's The Improved Disinfecting and Fumigating System at the Mississippi River Quarantine Station (1890). Call number 976.3 (614.46) O49i.

Image above: David Garcia Studio, MAP 002 Quarantine. 2009. See: http://davidgarciastudiomap.blogspot.com/

Exhibit Highlights Aesthetic & Technological Changes

CHAIRS: 125 Years of Design

"A chair is a very difficult object. A skyscraper is almost easier.

That is why Chippendale is famous."

--Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Tulane University’s Southeastern Architectural Archive (SEAA) has launched a new exhibition.

CHAIRS: 125 Years of Design illustrates the profound aesthetic, cultural, societal and technological changes that have impacted modern chair design. Highlights include seating furniture by A.W.N. Pugin (1812-1852), Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969), James Lamantia (1923-), and Curtis & Davis (active 1947-1978).

It has been said that few objects embody modern design as eloquently as the chair. The SEAA exhibition provides an expansive array of chairs and other seating forms dating from 1835 to 1960, from British architect/designer A.W.N. Pugin’s delicate etchings of Gothic-inspired seating to the New Orleans Curtis & Davis firm’s high modern sacristy furniture.

Architects first began designing furniture for their buildings in the seventeenth century. The Scottish-born architect Robert Adam (1728-1792) expanded his practice to devise furnishings and other household objects befitting his interiors. Similarly, American architect Samuel McIntire (1757-1811) designed neoclassical residences along with the case furniture and chairs to match.

Massachusetts furniture makers such as John Ainsworth Dunn and the Heywood Brothers shifted production from artisanship to factory assembly. The New Orleans World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition (1884-1885) revealed a growing assortment of manufactured American and European furniture: Charles Fitch Company’s rosewood and mahogany bureaus & tables, Heywood Brothers’ rattan & reed chairs, Friedrich Wenzel’s Texas Longhorn chairs, and Thonet’s Austrian bentwood seating. New Orleans architect Thomas Sully (1855-1939) decorated both home and office with such accoutrements.

There were also those who resisted the industrialization of household fitments. Arts and Crafts Movement architects such as A.W.N. Pugin (1812-1852) and Henry Hobson Richardson (1838-1886) championed the harmonious inclusion of handmade furniture into their structures. Harry L. Moses (c. 1877-c. 1935), a New Orleans designer, advertised himself locally as both an interior decorator and maker of fancy carved chairs. In the early twentieth century, Charles Milo Williams (1867-1954) created whimsical sketches of furniture adorned with intricate Moorish architectural embellishments.

The reconciliation of mechanization and fine craftsmanship occurred in the late 1920s. Architects associated with the Bauhaus created some of the twentieth century’s most significant chair designs. Such furniture impacted New Orleans architects in the years following World War II, as renowned architect-designers Charles Eames (1907-1978) and Eero Saarinen (1910-1961) garnered public acclaim, and as Knoll International expanded the American market for high quality “designer” furniture. Mark Lowery, Lemuel McCoy and James Lamantia’s entries for the Chicago Tribune’s 6^th Annual Better Rooms Competition (1952) attest to these changing sensibilities.

Has designing a new kind of chair been modernity’s ultimate test of architectural genius? Visit CHAIRS: 125 Years of Design and decide for yourself.

Co-curated by Keli Rylance and Kevin Williams, CHAIRS: 125 Years of Design opens 9 November 2009 in the Southeastern Architectural Archive and runs through 10 November 2010. The SEAA is located at 6801 Freret Street/300 Jones Hall, on Tulane University’s campus. Hours are 9-12 and 1-5 Mondays-Fridays. Admission is free.

CHAIRS: 125 Years of Design

The Southeastern Architectural Archive has been installing its new exhibition, co-curated by Keli Rylance and Kevin Williams.

CHAIRS: 125 Years of Design illustrates the profound aesthetic, cultural, societal and technological changes that have impacted modern chair design. Highlights include seating furniture by A.W.N. Pugin (1812-1852), Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969), James Lamantia (1923-), and Curtis & Davis (active 1947-1978).

The exhibition features the following works:

Inventory of Works

Baird, Henry W. (†1959)

Check Desk and Settee. 1918. Ink on paper.

Baird, Henry W. (†1959)

Office Design. Undated. Pencil on paper.

Curtis & Davis (active 1947-1978)[Nathaniel “Buster” Curtis, Jr. 1917-1998] [Arthur Q. Davis, 1920-]

Sanctuary Stacking Chair, Sedilla, and Prie-Dieu for St. Francis Cabrini Church, New Orleans. 1961.Pencil on paper

Curtis & Davis (active 1947-1978) [Nathaniel “Buster” Curtis, Jr. 1917-1998] [Arthur Q. Davis, 1920-]

Seating for Sacristy Furniture, St. Francis Cabrini Church, New Orleans. c. 1961. Ink on paper.

De Buys, Rathbone (1874-1960)

Interior, The Tudor Theatre, New Orleans, c. 1915. Photograph.

Eames, Charles (1907-1978)

Plastic Chairs, 1960-1961. Color Samples, Catalogs and Price Lists, Herman Miller, Inc., Zeeland, Michigan.

Freret & Wolf (active 1946-1980) [Douglass V. Freret, 1903-1973] [Albert Wolf, 1914-2004]

Offices for Montagnet Associates. Location unidentified. 1952. Pencil, ink, and colored pencil on tracing paper.

Knoll, Florence (1917-); Bellman, Hans (1911-1990); Saarinen, Eero (1910-1961); Mies Van Der Rohe, Ludwig (1886-1969)

Chairs. Undated Catalogs, Knoll Associates, Inc.

Lamantia, James (1923-)

Unidentified Furniture Showroom. Undated. Ink and watercolor on tracing paper.

Lamantia, James (1923-)

Unidentified Project. Undated. Ink on tracing paper.

Lamantia, James (1923-)

Unidentified Project. Undated. Ink and gouache on tracing paper.

Lamantia, James (1923-)

Chaise Lounge for Interiors Magazine Competition. Undated. Ink and ink wash on illustration board.

Lowery, Mark, Lemuel McCoy & James Lamantia.

Kitchen 152-AB for Chicago Tribune’s 6^th Annual Better Rooms Competition. 1952. Mixed media on illustration board.

Lowery, Mark, Lemuel McCoy & James Lamantia.

Kitchen 152-B for Chicago Tribune’s 6^th Annual Better Rooms Competition, 1952. Mixed media on illustration board

Lowery, Mark, Lemuel McCoy & James Lamantia.

A-4 Bedroom for Single Occupancy-Juvenile 115 for Chicago Tribune’s 6^th Annual Better Rooms Competition, 1952. Mixed media on illustration board

Mellor, Meigs & Howe (active 1916-1928) [Walter Mellor, 1880-1940] [Arthur Ingersoll Meigs, 1889-1956] [George Howe, 1886-1955]

A Spanish Chair for Mrs. Newbold’s Dressing Table, 1925. Photogravure. An American Country House, the property of Arthur E. Newbold, Jr., Esq., Laverlock, PA. New York: The Architectural Book Publishing Company, Inc., 1925. Courtesy Rare Books, Special Collections Division

Mies Van Der Rohe, Ludwig (1886-1969)

Barcelona Chair. First designed 1929. Chromed Steel, Leather and Urethane Foam. Knoll International, 745 Fifth Avenue, NewYork. Courtesy Dean Lance Query

Moses, Harry L. (c. 1875-c.1933)

A Spanish Chair for F.E. Lee. Undated. Graphite on tracing paper.

Pugin, Augustus Welby Northmore (1812-1852)

Chairs. 1835. Etching. Gothic Furniture in the Style of the 15^th Century. London: Ackermann, 1835. Courtesy Rare Books, Special Collections Division

Roach, Philip (active 1949-1969)

“Imperial” Chair Profiles, client not given. Undated. Pencil and colored pencil on paper; Pencil on paper.

Sully & Toledano (active 1888-1892) [Thomas Sully 1855-1939] [Albert Toledano 1859-1923]

Pew for J.L. Harris Memorial Chapel, Christ Church Cathedral, New Orleans. c. 1889. Ink on linen.

Unknown Designer

Bentply Chair 1294-S16 with Urea Finish, Brass Ferrules & Rubber Cushion Guides. 1966. Thonet Industries, Inc., Park Avenue, New York. Private collection.

Unknown Designer

Fiberglass Chair Model 6000-8 with Chrome Legs, 1960s. Krueger Metal Products, Green Bay, Wisconsin. Private Collection

Unknown Designer

CH. 28 Chair. 1967. Catalog and Leather Sample. Zographos, Madison Avenue, New York.

Unknown Maker

Walnut Side Chair from the Masonic Temple, Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Product supplied by George Smith Co., 1925. Private collection

[Weiblen, Albert] Albert Weiblen Marble & Granite Company (1889-1970s)

Plaster Models of Stone Benches. Undated.

[Weiblen, Albert] Albert Weiblen Marble & Granite Company (1889-1970s)

Photographs of Sample Marble Benches. Undated.

[Weiblen, Albert] Albert Weiblen Marble & Granite Company (1889-1970s)

Suggestion for Stone Seats for Audubon Park, New Orleans. 1920. Ink on linen.

Williams, Charles Milo (1867-1954)

Drawings of Chairs and Tables. 1903. Pen and ink.

William C. Williams & Brother (active 1884-c. 1890s)

Entrance Hall. Undated. Watercolor on paper.

William C. Williams & Brother (active 1884-c. 1890s)

Entrance Hall. Undated. Watercolor on paper.

Other catalogs/furniture announcements:

Auction Announcement 1861

Unreserved catalogue sale of very elegant household furniture from the best Paris makers, rich silver ware, ... by N. Vignie, auctioneer. Monday, April 22d and the following day ... no. 104 Bourbon street ... at the residence of A. Ledoux,Esq., leaving for Europe ... New Orleans, 1861. Courtesy The Louisiana Research Collection, Gift of Mrs. Alford Guna

Catalog No. 11, c. 1911

Southern Seating Company, New Orleans.

School Furniture Catalog 100S, c. 1919

Distributed by W.T. Moore & Co., New Orleans for Heywood-Wakefield. Wakefield, Massachusetts.

General Catalog of Equipment, 1926

Albert Pick and Company, Chicago, Illinois.

Church Furniture Catalog No. 51, 1952

Riecke Cabinet Works, New Orleans.

Unknown Maker

Theatre Seating Ends, c. 1900 From the St. Charles Theatre, St. Charles Avenue. Painted Cast Iron and Wood.

Sanitary Opera Chairs for Church Auditorium & Theatre Catalog, c. 1911

Southern Seating Company, New Orleans.

Theatre Seating Catalog, No. 99E, c. 1920s

Distributed by W.T. Moore & Co., New Orleans for Heywood-Wakefield. Wakefield, Massachusetts.

& In the Garden Library. . .

Roccheggiani, Lorenzo

Invenzioni diversi di mobile ed utensili sacri e profane per usi comuni della vita. Milan, 1811.

Wiedorn, William (1896-1988)

Hidden Garden. Undated. Graphite and Ink on Paper. William S. Wiedorn Collection, SEAA

Unknown Makers

Garden Seats illustrated in Gertrude Jekyll’s Garden Ornament. London, 1918.

Style of Adam, Robert (1728-1792)

Chair illustrated in Minga Pope Duryea’s Gardens in and about Town. New York, c. 1923.

Faux Bois

As illustrated in Edward Sprague Rand, Jr.’s Garden Flowers: How to Cultivate Them. A Treatise on the Culture of Hardy Ornamental Trees, Shrubs, Annuals, Herbaceous and Bedding Plants. Boston, 1866.

Image above: Detail, 1957 EMECO Catalog. Courtesy EMECO.