Architecture Grad Students, Leeds Iron Works, and the PRC

We are meeting with incoming Master of Preservation Studies students from the Tulane School of Architecture today, and wanted to share some of the items we brought out to show them the scope of different types of documents, artifacts, and books they might expect to use in their own research projects in SEAA.

Included are original Gallier and Turpin 1850 watercolor drawings from our Sylvester Labrot Collection for the Leeds Iron Foundry building, located at 923 Tchoupitoulas Street in New Orleans, currently the headquarters of the Preservation Resource Center. We also pulled original photos from our Frank H. Boatner Collection of Louisiana Architecture Photographs, Louisiana Landmarks Society Records and Collection, and our Miscellaneous Photographs. To show how the building related to its 19th century neighborhood, we included the 1876 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, which was recently digitized and is included in the Tulane University Digital Library (TUDL). And to give the students a sense of what the Leeds company produced, we included cast iron decorative details salvaged from demolished New Orleans buildings.

    

   

Mary Mykolyk for International Women's Day

Strip negative press photos of Mary Mykolyk at
Curtis & Davis. Frank Lotz Miller, photographer.

In honor of International Women's Day today, we thought we would focus on New Orleans architect, Ismay Mary Mykolyk (1926-1985). Born in British-controlled Nairobi, Kenya, she was educated in England, and received her architecture degree from the University of Manitoba, Canada in 1949. In architecture school, she met fellow student, John Peter Mykolyk (1925-2015), whom she married. Together, they started a career in Minnesota. The couple soon relocated to New Orleans, where Mary established herself as an associate architect in the firm of Curtis & Davis in 1954, where she was Chief Associate Architect on several projects, including the Tulane University Student Center, the Guste Housing Project, New Orleans, and the U.S. Embassy in Saigon.

Mary established her own firm in 1965 in New Orleans, sometimes partnering with other local firms including Lowrey, Hess, Boudreaux, and Farnet (Loyola University Law School), and Lawrence and Saunders (Loyola University Science Complex).

Tulane University Student Center, 1959. Curtis & Davis, architects (Mary Mykolyk, Chief Associate Architect). Frank Lotz Miller, photographer. Curtis & Davis Project Photographs, SEAA.

Exterior night view, interior at night, and swimming pool.

Guste Housing Project, New Orleans. 1964. Curtis & Davis, architects (Mary Mykolyk, Chief Associate Architect). Frank Lotz Miller, photographer. Curtis & Davis Project Photographs, SEAA. Two exterior views, top shows Mary Mykolyk pointing.

Loyola University Law School, New Orleans. 1968 - 1969, perspective elevation. Mary Mykolyk; Lowrey, Hess, Boudreaux, and Farnet, architects.Ink and Zipatone on vellum.

August Perez and Associates

Arrow Tourist Court, entrance, Gentilly Boulevard, New Orleans. 1947.
August Perez and Associates, architects. Pencil on tracing paper.

Althea Topek, our archives technician, just completed processing project drawings from our August Perez and Associates Office Records. August Perez, Jr. (1906-1998), was born and raised in New Orleans, and educated at Tulane University and Delgado Central Trades School (now Delgado Community College). The drawings mostly cover the period of the firm from the start of the office in 1940 through Perez's retirement in 1978. After 1978, the firm was headed by his son, Tulane University School of Architecture graduate, August Perez, III (1933-2014). In 1992, the firm became Perez, Ernst, Farnet Architects. It continues today as Perez, APC under Angela O'Byrne, also a Tulane School of Architecture graduate.

Notable projects of August Perez and Associates include the 1940 Art Moderne Blue Plate Foods building on Jefferson Davis Parkway, New Orleans and the International style Louisiana Supreme Court building for the New Orleans Civic Complex in 1959. The firm was prolific in designing residences, shopping centers, academic buildings, public, and other buildings in New Orleans, Louisiana, and other parts of the south.

The collection also includes project photographs from the 1950s through the 1980s, many by New Orleans architectural photographer, Frank Lotz Miller.

Below are a few perspective renderings for projects in the collection--

Community Shopping Center for Latter and Blum, Incorporated. Frenchmen Street and Gentilly Boulevard, New Orleans. Ca. 1944. August Perez and Associates, architects. Pencil on tracing paper.

Blue Plate Foods, Charlotte, NC. 1945. August Perez and Associates, architects. Pencil on tracing paper.

Store and Office Building, Metairie Road and Atherton Drive. Metairie, LA. 1947. August Perez and Associates, architects. Pencil on tracing paper.

African-American College, Southwest Louisiana. Ca. 1950s. August Perez and Associates, architects. Pencil on tracing paper.