Kahn System

In March 1906, Asa J. Biggs (†1913); a Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained engineer and principal in the New Orleans firm Mackenzie, Goldstein & Biggs; wrote an article for Architectural Art and Its Allies heralding a new reinforced-concrete building technique, the Kahn system. Invented by Julius Kahn and patented 18 August 1903 (Patent No. 736,602), the system featured rolled bars with diagonal "wings" bent up at regular intervals to prevent shear cracks in horizontal beams (see diagram on envelope below). Kahn's Detroit-based Trussed Concrete Steel Company manufactured and marketed the reinforcement system, and its structural engineers supplied builders with their services.

Frank Lloyd Wright employed the Kahn system in his Imperial Hotel (1913-23) in Tokyo.(1)  In New Orleans, Bemis Brothers' Gulf Bag Company building (329 Julia Street) was erected on 660 Raymond concrete piles, and its beams and floor slabs employed the Kahn system (1905-06).  This facilitated the builder's desire to span a clear space of 44 feet that would allow heavy bales of burlap cloth to be loaded and unloaded.(2) Edmund Burke Mason was the engineer in charge of construction for Bemis Brothers Bag Company of Boston, and supervised the construction of the Julia Street facility, as well as that of Bemis plants in San Francisco and St. Louis.(3)

(1) Joseph M. Siry. "The Architecture of Earthquake Resistance: Julius Kahn's Truscan Company and Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel" Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 67:1 (March 2008): pp. 78-105.

(2) Asa J. Biggs. "A Re-Inforced Concrete Factory." Architectural Art and Its Allies (March 1906), pp. 13-14.

(3)John Smith Kendall. "Edmund Burke Mason." History of New Orleans, vol. 3. 1922. p. 946.

Images above: "Gulf Bag Company Building." Architectural Art and Its Allies (March 1906), p. 13; Trussed Concrete Steel Company envelope, 1909. "Louisiana Printing Co.," Martin Shepard Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Mushroom System II

We had posted an earlier entry regarding the use of C.A.P. Turner's so-called "Mushroom System" in the construction of the New Orleans Johns-Manville Building (1914). One year earlier, architect Emile Weil (1878-1945)  was touted as employing the method for the "Most Up-to-Date Wholesale House in New Orleans," his Woodward-Wight building (344 St. Joseph Street). The construction photograph reproduced above appeared in the January 1913 issue of Architectural Art and Its Allies, a local architecture/building journal.

Image above: "The Mushroom System of Reinforced Concrete." Architectural Art and Its Allies (January 1913), p. 20.  Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Building Letterheads II

I had an earlier post about buildings on company letterheads, and just came across another one.  The structure above was the New Orleans headquarters for the Howell Company, Incorporated, manufacturers and packers of family medicines, household remedies, toilet articles, insecticides and sundries.

According to The Times-Picayune, the company acquired the property located at the intersection of Magazine and Calliope Streets in 1929 (1104 Magazine Street), intending to build a three-story warehouse (1).  The masonry building that appeared on a 1946 Howell Company letter was designed by Henry A. Ehresensig (1907-1985)  for "Toups Products Co." in 1940. (2)  T.A. Toups was Secretary-Treasurer for the Howell Company.

(1) "Upper Magazine Expansion Deal Features Realty." The Times-Picayune 31 January 1929: p. 9 [p. 37 of electronic version].  The 63 x 127' site sold for $15,000.

(2)  Architectural drawings are at the New Orleans Public Library.  See:  http://nutrias.org/~nopl/plans/blueprints_m.htm

Image above:  T.A. Toups, letter to R.B. Rordom, 4 November 1946, Guy Seghers Office Records, "District 1 Square 138," Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Building Letterheads

Early twentieth-century letterhead design frequently incorporated engraved images of the business structures.  The New Orleans-founded H.T. Cottam & Company, Incorporated -- which also had offices in Donaldsonville, Thibodaux, Gulfport, Jackson & Crowley -- utilized an image of its 700 Tchoupitoulas Street building, the Cottam Block, as the center of its letterhead.  The structure was designed by Stone Brothers, Architects in 1909 and now operates as the Renaissance New Orleans Arts Hotel.  Tulane University's Southeastern Architectural Archive retains the 1909 project drawings.

In 1928, the H.T. Cottam & Co., Inc.  was soliciting W.J. and G.J. Seghers' professional assessment of property line divisions between the Ricks Tract, owned by Mr. C.B. Fox, and a tract owned by Tom Cottam.  The surveyors responded accordingly.  By 1945, Cottam's tract was owned by Ridge Park, Inc., speculators who subdivided the land, renaming it "Cottam Park."

The Seghers surveyors had a tendency to inter-file all correspondence related to a particular tract of land, regardless of chronological or project distinction.  Thus, the letterhead captured above was interfiled into correspondence, surveys and title histories associated with Cottom Park, East Jefferson Parish.

Image above:  H.T.C., letter to W.J. & G.J. Seghers, 12 December 1928, Guy Seghers Office Records, "Cottam Park; Jefferson Parish (East)," Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.