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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...
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NOLA Catalog Homes
I was recently invited to write a short piece for the Sears Homes of Chicagoland Blog. The entry focuses on catalog homes in New Orleans.If any of the above houses look familiar, the post may be of...
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Lexicon: Hi-Lo
In the late 1920s, New Orleans realtors began advertising “Hi-Lo”s to indicate a new type of raised basement bungalow that accommodated ground-level parking. Edward Sporl proposed a Craftsman Hi-Lo...
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Plantation Prefab
After the Civil War, labor shortages on plantation properties drove one New Orleans lumberman, Walter W. Carré, to begin selling manufactured portable cabins (top image). The steam-cut lumber was...
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UDOs [Unidentified Drawn Objects]
Often times, architects did not include municipal addresses or client names on their renderings. Similarly, kit home catalogs sometimes did not reference geographic location or the name of the...
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A New American Architecture (1859)
We recently came across an interesting defense of William A. Freret's Merchants' Insurance Company building, erected in 1859. As the structure was being completed, it provoked the ire of local critics...
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Terra Cotta
Architectural terracotta was very popular with New Orleans architects. After the Civil War, notices for the material proliferated in local publications. Earliest mentions largely related to roofing...
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Final Week
If you haven't had a chance to visit the Southeastern Architectural Archive's Bungalows exhibit, you have one more week before it closes.Image above: Bungalow. Residence Scene, Leesville, LA....
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Petrified Summer Residence
A few months ago, my colleague Kevin Williams found mention in a New Orleans publication about an unusual building material adopted in southwestern North Dakota:"Perhaps the strangest material ever...
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Concrete & Steel (1946-50)
After World War II, there was a considerable amount of experimentation with building materials. Industrial plants that had been mobilized for war were converted to fuel the high demands for affordable...
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Lustron
In our previous post we mentioned the Lustron residences constructed in New Orleans in 1949-1950. O.J. Farnsworth, who owned the city's franchise, primarily built Westchesters, the most popular of the...
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Upcycle Pioneer (1944)
In 1941, Hazel Dell Brown (c. 1892-1982), the chief interior designer for Armstrong Cork Company, penned her first Album of Room Ideas. She followed with subsequent albums, each time making creative...
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Steel Vogue House (1954)
New Orleans. 21 March 1954.A NEW APPROACH IN HOME BUILDING, the "Steel Vogue House" at 325 Sena in Metairie will be open for inspection Sunday, M.C. Baker Jr., builder, describes the home as having all...
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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...
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Mean Streets
With all the public works projects underway in New Orleans, it seemed like an appropriate time to introduce this undated photograph, labelled "Laying Sewer Pipes on Camp Street."In the summer of 1906,...
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Holly Springs Iron
In 1860, Holly Springs, Mississippi (1858 map detail shown above) began to garner attention in the Gulf South as a source for ornate iron facades. Wallace Scott McElwain (1832-1883) had established a...
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Happy Home (1923)
Architect-builder Edwin L. Markel (1888-1956) completed a new residence for his family in 1923 and invited the public to visit his "Happy Home." Located at 4416 South Galvez Street, the house featured...
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International Archives Day!
Happy International Archives Day!!If you want to see representative images from hundreds of archives worldwide, click here.
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Colori e disegni
We recently acquired a large number of color-related publications for the Southeastern Architectural Archive's Architectural Trade Catalogs collection. Many of these were printed in the early...
View ArticleNew Orleans Public Health (1859)
In the summer of 1859, The Daily Picayune suggested improving the City's public health by raising structures above the ground and covering the earth with concrete or brick:"Much improvement in the...
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