DIY Architecture (1885)

In 1885, The Weekly Kansas Chief reported on the availability of plans and specification forms that could be easily adapted for frame or masonry construction. Bridgeport, Connecticut architects Palliser, Palliser & Co. circulated advertisements of their pattern books to American states and territories; their designs eventually impacted architecture nationwide.

"Messrs. Pilliser, Pilliser [sic] & Co., of Bridgeport, Ct., the well-known Architects and Publishers of standard works on architecture, have lately issued a sheet containing plans and specifications of a very tasteful modern eight-room cottage with tower, and also with the necessary modifications for building it without the tower, and with but six rooms if desired. In its most costly form, the outlay is estimated at $3,000: without the tower, it has been built for $2,500; and if only six rooms are included, the cost may be reduced to $1,700 or $2,000. Details are given of mantels, stairs, doors and casings, cornices, etc. The publishers have found it the most popular plan they have ever issued, and state that it has been adopted in more than five hundred instances within their knowledge. The same firm issues Specifications in blank, adapted for frame or brick buildings of any cost; also forms of building contract, and several books on modern inexpensive, artistic cottage plans, which are of great practical value and convenience to everyone interested."

The Weekly Kansas Chief (17 May 1883). Available through Chronicling America.

Message in a Building (2016)

A mason replacing damaged limestone on Kansas State University's East Memorial Stadium (1922-28) recently discovered a note written by his predecessors in 1928. Lamenting the plight of the working man, five laborers signed the document:

"Dear Folks, Will place a not[e] in wall as it may some day be found and perhaps the men that Built it will be dead and forgotten. We are having nice weather was 18 above zero this morning. Hope when this is opened things will be better for the working man than [now?]. Mason got $10 per day and labor $3.20 there will have to be a change soon or the labor will be out of luck. Please print this if found signed CK Bell, Geo H Bell, W. Sowell, Jim Kelley, Ray [Disney?] Good luck."

For more on the story, see the Associated Press.

Stones of New Orleans

We recently came across the New Orleans Geological Society's 1982 "Building Stones of New Orleans," a section of its publication, A Tour Guide to the Building Stones of New Orleans, available through the AAPG Datapages/Archives.

"Building Stones" includes listings of important New Orleans structures along with an identification of the relevant veneering stones that were selected by the architects.

For example, Thomas Sully's New Orleans National Bank (201 Camp Street, 1884-88), shown above and referred to in the publication as the Calhoun and Barnes Building, utilized Lake Superior Brownstone. Commonly referred to today as Jacobsville Sandstone, it was primarily quarried in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Ontario and was popular in the years after Chicago's Great Fire due to its perceived fire resistance. After the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, it declined in popularity as architects increasingly sought lighter-colored sheathing stones.

Many of the structures listed in "Building Stones" have been altered since 1982, a number have been razed and one is currently being demolished. The Woolworth Building, 1041 Canal Street, features Canadian black granite on its ground floor facade. Designed by Roessle & Olschner in 1939 for F.W. Woolworth Company of New York, the structure was altered after the Second World War by Jones and Roessle (1948) and then renovated by J. Buchanan Blitch & Associates (1969). The upper portion of the building facade was demolished in October 2014.

Images above:  A.J. MacDonald, photographer. Thomas Sully, architect. New Orleans National Bank, 201 Camp Street. Undated.

J.W. Taylor, photographer. Thomas Sully, architect. New Orleans National Bank, 201 Camp Street. Undated.  Both Thomas Sully Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

1948 Cornice Collapse

On April 28, 1948 at 12:20 a.m., a series of old brick and concrete cornices attached to shops located at 526-28-30-32 Royal Street collapsed due to heavy traffic vibrations. The cornices were approximately three feet high, one foot deep, and extended some 60 feet from side to side. When they crumbled, they destroyed the iron balconies and some of the plate glass windows below them. Vieux Carre Commission architect-inspector, Walter Cook Keenan, appeared on the scene to take photographs and spoke to Times-Picayune reporters:

'The mortar used in constructing the buildings was of very poor quality and some of the buildings 200 years old have mortar in them which has never dried. You can pick it out with a lead pencil.'(1)

Eye witnesses reported a noise that sounded like an "explosion" prior to the collapse. No injuries were reported.

This week 808-810  Royal Street experienced a more catastrophic collapse and is currently being demolished (above).

(1)"Collapse of Cornices Laid to Vibration, Houses' Age." The Times-Picayune 29 April 1948.

Images above:  Walter Cook Keenan, photographer. 524-530 Royal Street.  30 April 1948.  Walter Cook Keenan New Orleans Architecture Photographs, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries; K. Rylance, photographer. 808-810 Royal Street. 26 October 2014.

Brick Nomenclature

In the summer of 1891, Carpentry and Building magazine addressed the regional nomenclature of brick making and reported on New Orleans specifically

"Down in New Orleans where our friend Blaffer lives, the place where the water runs away from the river instead of running into it which is also the home of the 'manly art,' bricks, too, are made in very great quantities. The Blaffer Brick and Lumbering Company have a yard that is the model of neatness. This is a river yard, and the clay used by such yards is called 'batture.' It is the silt which floats down the river during high water and settles in pockets or eddies formed to catch it. When the water recedes this dries out, and is then carted outside the levees into great banks ready for use. A brick yard has been run in this same place for nearly 40 years. Each year the river is sure to rise and the silt to come down and the batture formed for another season's works. Back from the river the clay is what is called 'buckshot,' because when dug it breaks up in hard, square pieces.

"The bricks at New Orleans are graded; first as 'foundries,' which are the softest and used for lining crucibles; then the 'salmon' for chimneys. They call their best 'bench brick,'and all others 'klinkers,' which are used for foundations. On the old yards around New Orleans they use mud or tempering wheels that would be a curiosity to a Northern man. They are fully 12 feet or more in diameter, with a 6-inch broad solid tire and rim. They clay is only about 6 or 8 inches deep in the pit and is simply mashed in tempering it. The shaft on which this wheel runs has no ratchet, and the wheel is made to travel in or out by being thrown off of a center at its axes. On these yards they use three-brick molds, dumping on narrow pallets split out of hemlock. On one of these yards, run by an old French Creole, he told me that his pallets had been in use over 35 years."

Excerpt from "Nomenclature or Vernacular in Brick Making." Carpentry and Building (1 July 1891): p. 169 as viewed through ProQuest American Periodicals from the Center for Research Libraries, a subscription database available at Tulane University Libraries.

Image above:  Salvaged brick, recto and verso.Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Lost Carrollton

New Orleans architect C. Milo Williams (1867-1954) took an interest in the old Porter residence, located at the intersection of Levee and Monroe Streets in Carrollton. According to Williams, the structure was constructed of Hoey's bricks, and was one of the oldest buildings standing in Carrollton. He photographed the building prior to its demolition in the early twentieth century (top image).

His father, William H. Williams (1817-1886) had also taken an interest in the Porter properties and the Hoey brick operations.  In 1878, he copied an 1845 D'Hemecourt survey of the Porter properties and sketched the building's basic plan (second & third  images). The elder Williams also developed a proposed levee plan for John Hoey's brick operations in November 1865 (bottom image), the year prior to the plantation owner's death.

All of these historic sites no longer exist, although the Hoey residence, constructed for John Hoey's widow Carolyn Pierce Hoey (1871) remains at 7933 Willow Street. Louisiana Research Collections (LaRC) retains John Hoey's papers, including his brickyard account ledgers.

Images:

Top: C. Milo Williams, photographer. Porter residence, 8643 Levee Street/806 Monroe Street. Before 1909. Williams Family Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Second & Third: William H. Williams, surveyor. Surveys of Porter Property. Notebook No. 86. From 3 January 1878. William H. and C. Milo Williams notebooks, Louisiana Research Collection, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Bottom: William H. Williams, surveyor. Diagram of Hoey's Levees. Notebook No. 43. November 1865. William H. and C. Milo Williams notebooks, Louisiana Research Collection, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Fifth Wheel of the Wagon

As reported by The Daily Picayune 2 September 1889:

"Architects say their business is constantly increasing and that people are beginning to learn more readily that money is saved and other profit gained by employment of the architect. People used to believe an architect constituted the fifth wheel of the wagon. Nowadays, however, that opinion is giving way in the face of returning prosperity and the development of architectural tastes. Style in residences and stores, as stated before, is changing along St. Charles avenue, Prytania and other residence streets there is a greater prevalence of European and modern American architecture and a constant broadening of lines.

Another matter of note is the fact that stone is coming into more general use than ever before. Many of the lately constructed residences up town are COMBINATIONS OF BRICK AND STONE, and in the selection of the granite there is the utmost catholicity of taste. The Morris building, the Howard Library, and the Whitney National Bank, are all for the most part part built of red granite."

Excerpt from "Brick and Mortar: The Past Year's Building Operations," p. 2.