LGBT+ Archives Project and Barnett's Furniture Store

Our friends in Tulane University's Louisiana Research Collection (LaRC) will be honored at the 4th annual Oracle Gala of the LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana. Founders of Southern Decadence will present LaRC with the official donation of their records. The LGBT+ Archives Project works with New Orleans and Louisiana archives to preserve the written record of the history of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender groups and individuals, and to find permanent homes for these important materials.

This year's Oracle Gala will be held at the Ace Hotel in New Orleans this coming Sunday evening. SEAA preserves the original drawings for the hotel's original occupant, Barnett's Furniture, in our Weiss, Dreyfous, and Seiferth (W,D,S) Office Records. W,D,S was the New Orleans architectural firm also responsible for the current Louisiana State Capitol building in Baton Rouge, the unoccupied Charity Hospital in New Orleans, much of the second phase of the Louisiana State University campus in Baton Rouge, the St. Bernard Parish Courthouse in Chalmette, and many more public, commercial, and residential projects in the state. The drawings below are pencil on tracing paper, and include the Carondelet and Lafayette Street elevations, details of the beautiful Art Deco details, and details showing the Barnett name. They are dated July 1927, and are very dark and dirty--apologies for the poor quality photos.

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

Swedish Architects & Artists in New Orleans

We are excited for this week's opening of the exhibit, "Bror Anders Wikstrom: Bringing Fantasy to Carnival", December 14, 2017 through April 1, 2018, at the New Orleans Museum of Art. The exhibit focuses on Swedish born Wikstrom (1854-1909), who was a noted artist, designer of early New Orleans carnival floats, and a founding member of the New Orleans Artists Association in 1885. Many of the beautiful original drawings in the exhibit are being loaned by the Louisiana Research Collection (LaRC) of the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library.

This post was suggested by Cecilia Kjellgren, Tulane alum and Honorary Consul of Sweden for New Orleans. While SEAA doesn't hold any records of Swedish-born architects working in New Orleans, our friends in the Louisiana Research Collection kindly let us photograph items from their holdings that showcase buildings for the 1884 World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition held in New Orleans on the site of what is now the current Audubon Park. The supervising architect for the fair, and architect of the Main Building, was Gustavus M. Torgerson, who was born in Sweden, immigrated to the United States ca. 1865, and settled in Oxford, Mississippi in 1868 to practice as an architect. He proved to be prolific, designing many residences and public buildings in that state, many still standing today.

The posters below are from the Image Collection in the Louisiana Research Collection. Top: "View of the World's Exposition from St. Charles Avenue North East, City Park (current Audubon Park), New Orleans". Krebs Lithographing Company, Cincinnati, Ohio. Middle: Detail of Main Building from poster at bottom. Bottom: "The World's Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition, New Orleans". J.S. Rivers, Lithographer, Printer, and Stationer, New Orleans. 

Below are stereopticon cards from LaRC's Image Collection, Edward L. Wilson, photographer.

Below is an undated photo of the interior of Horticultural Hall, which stood until the 1915 hurricane; in addition, below are two advertising cards for the fair, all from LaRC's Image Collection.