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! 

Empire Exhibition at Newcomb Art Museum

SEAA has loaned several items for Newcomb Art Museum's EMPIRE exhibition, opening Friday April 13 with a talk with guest curators, David Burns and Austin Young, of Fallen Fruit at 6:30 pm, followed by a public reception from 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm. On Saturday April 14, SEAA will participate in "roving archivist" tours as part of the Fruit for All event from 10:00 am - 1:00 pm. Other participating departments and collections include Louisiana Research Collection (LaRC), Hogan Jazz Archive, Tulane University Archives, Latin American Library, Tulane University Biodiversity Research Institute, Middle American Research Institute, Newcomb Art Museum, Newcomb College Institute Archives, and the Amistad Research Center.

Items from SEAA include plaster scale models and watercolor renderings for tombs in Metairie Cemetery; building artifacts of wood, stone, plaster, and ironwork, including a railing from Belle Grove Plantation, a grained cypress door from Armitage Plantation, a hammered iron weather vane from Angelina Plantation, and a bored cypress log that was part of an early New Orleans water main; models of Tomy Lafon Elementary School, Lulu White's Mahogany Hall, and the Ninth Ward Victory Arch; photographs by C. Milo Williams of family life in late-19th century Carrollton section of New Orleans contrasted to mid-20th century images by Frank Lotz Miller of families in modernist Curtis and Davis houses; photographs of slave cabins of Laurel Valley Plantation by Philip M. Denman; watercolor renderings of recently removed Confederate memorials; and a rendition of the following early 19th century French hand-blocked wallpaper remnant from de la Ronde Plantation house in St. Bernard Parish. We hope to see you at the EMPIRE opening tomorrow night! And if you'd like to see how much information archivists can remember without a cheat sheet, please join us again on Saturday for tours of the exhibit at Fruit for All.

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!