Albert Ledner Exhibit

This is the final day of our exhibit "The Organic Modernism of Albert C. Ledner," and we thought we would share images from the opening reception from last August (Mr. Ledner at left). The exhibit was sponsored by the Louisiana Architecture Foundation (LAF), and Letterman's. Additional support was provided by the Marjorie Peirce Geiser and John Geiser, Jr. Fund of the Southeastern Architectural Archive. The opening reception was generously sponsored by the LAF. 

Many thanks to everyone who attended, and all who helped make this exhibit, and the opening reception, the most well attended in our history, and one of the biggest events of Howard-Tilton Memorial Library. Special thanks go to Stacey Pfingsten, Executive Director of the Louisiana Architecture Foundation, and her volunteers, including Kelly Lauren Calhoun. Thanks to Chuck Perret and his staff at Letterman's. Thank you Katheryn Warzak of Howard-Tilton Library for the video she produced of the exhibit prep work and reception, and to Bernadette Birzer and Lisa Hooper for their help with the video. And thanks to Leon Miller of the Louisiana Research Collection (LaRC) for providing music for the opening reception.

Our reception was also the opening event for the premier of the documentary film about Ledner, "Designing Life:The Modernist Architecture of Albert C. Ledner", at the New Orleans Museum of Art, which was part of the Architecture and Design Film Festival New Orleans. Mr. Ledner passed away in November 2017 while in New York City for the showing of his documentary there. 

All photographs provided by the Louisiana Architecture Foundation

Welcome Incoming Freshmen

SEAA participated in Tulane's new summer orientation program for incoming first-year students, CAST (Cultivating Academic Success at Tulane). Running from June 1 through 18, students registered for fall classes, learned about campus resources, and visited different Special Collections departments and the Latin American Library, to learn about the unique holdings at Tulane. Calling this part of the program "Tulane's Treasures," students learned about the Hogan Jazz Archive, the Louisiana Research Collection (LaRC), Rare Books, the University Archives, and SEAA. For our visit, we talked to them about SEAA's history and mission, showed them a sampling of tomb watercolor drawings, plaster models, and other items from our Albert Weiblen Marble and Granite Company records, and walked them through our exhibit, The Organic Modernism of Albert C. Ledner. Highlights included the famous "Ash Tray House" on Park Island in Bayou St. John in New Orleans, the New Orleans branch of the National Maritime Union, now a dog day spa, the National Maritime Union's national headquarters in New York City, also known as the "Overbite Building," and a dormitory for the NMU in New York that features porthole windows, and was recently converted into a boutique hotel, covered in polished stainless steel, and now referred to as the "Cheese Grater." The exhibit has been extended through next Friday, June 29. 

Welcome Class of 2022! 

Mapping French Quarter Class

Today we welcomed Tulane School of Architecture Professor Irene Keil's class on mapping the French Quarter to SEAA. Consisting of 16 incoming architecture graduate students, the class will learn techniques in mapping New Orleans' French Quarter using historic maps as a basis. We talked to the students about SEAA's history, what kinds of materials we preserve, and showed them our exhibit on the New Orleans modernist architect, Albert C. Ledner (which will close June 29, but you can always access the wonderful digital version created by our archives technician, Althea Topek). We also brought out several items from our Albert Weiblen Marble & Granite Company records to give them a sense of the variety of research materials a single collection might contain. 

For their mapping exercise, we showed them Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps from 1876 through 1978. SEAA has the only known copy of the two-volume 1876 Sanborn, which was digitized in 2017 and included on the Tulane University Digital Library (TUDL). 

This class was very engaged, and we know they will do well in their endeavors. Welcome to Tulane!

Albert C. Ledner Passing

We are sad to learn of the passing of New Orleans architect and SEAA friend, Albert C. Ledner. Our condolences go out to his daughter Catherine, sons David and Robert, and grandchildren. We are grateful to have had the opportunity to work with him this past summer to mount our current exhibit "The Organic Modernism of Albert C. Ledner."

http://www.nola.com/homegarden/index.ssf/2017/11/architect_albert_c_ledner_who.html

Judy and Albert Ledner at the National Maritime Union Exhibit at the 1964 New York World's Fair.

SEAA's New Blog

Welcome to our new blog! For our first post, we thought we'd focus on our current exhibit, The Organic Modernism of Albert C. Ledner, which opened in August. This exhibit was done in collaboration with the premier of the documentary on Albert C. Ledner, Designing Life: The Modernist Architecture of Albert C. Ledner. 

Sponsors for the exhibit are Lettermans and the Louisiana Architectural Foundation, with additional support provided by the Marjorie Peirce Geiser and John Geiser, Jr. Fund of the Southeastern Architectural Archive. Our opening night reception, held August 17, was sponsored by the Louisiana Architectural Foundation. We are grateful for the wonderful turnout, and thank everyone who attended. You helped make this the most successful reception we've had to date!

This exhibit features drawings, photographs, and other items from the records of New Orleans modernist architect Albert Charles Ledner. Born in 1924 in the Bronx, New York City, Ledner was raised in New Orleans. After graduating from the Tulane School of Architecture in 1948, Ledner attended the Frank Lloyd Wright Fellowship in Spring Green, Wisconsin. He returned to New Orleans in 1950, and soon had a commission to design a house for C.V. Goldate in Metairie, Louisiana. This led to a career designing many residences in the New Orleans region, several commercial projects, the First Unitarian Church on Jefferson Avenue in New Orleans, and buildings for the National Maritime Union, including New Orleans, Baltimore, San Francisco, Norfolk, Virginia, and the national headquarters in New York City.

Drawings are supplemented by period photographs, b/w snapshots, and prints made from 35mm slides of projects. Photographs taken by Ledner on trips to see Frank Lloyd Wright buildings are in cases under the windows. Included is an ashtray from the A.C. Sunkel residence, aka “the Ashtray House’ on Park Island, New Orleans, acrylic and glass shades made by Ledner for lighting fixtures, and a plan for an electric tunnel oven for Ledner’s mother’s bakery, and a cookbook from 1987 of his mother’s recipes. Ledner’s mother, Beulah Ledner, is credited with the creation of the New Orleans doberge cake.

Earlier this week, we had an unexpected gift of a ceramic model of the Galatoire/Massey residence (see above pencil drawing) designed by Ledner in 1962 for Leonie Galatoire, of the famed New Orleans restaurant family, Galatoire's. Judy and Morris Massey owned the house in the 1970s and 1980s, and had this model made in 1982. A long-time SEAA donor introduced us to Mrs. and Dr. Massey, who decided to preserve their model with us. It has been included in the Ledner exhibit. SEAA has benefited from the generous support from donors like the Masseys since its founding in 1979. Thank you!