"Architecturally, New Orleans is perhaps best known for its Creole cottages, shotgun houses, and the mixed-influences of the French Quarter. But there is a small yet important concentration of Regional Modernism in the Big Easy and local Modernists are doing their damnedest to preserve it. Let’s just hope its not too late. Currently facing the biggest threat are 30 area schools built during the 50s — 29 of which are slated for demolition or land-banking..."
Where's friend Jimmy over at Life Without Buildings is leading the blogosphere side of a charge to save a collection of Modernist public schools in the Crecent City. If you're at all interested in modernist preservation, I'd suggest you make your voice heard. There's less than a month left until the decision regarding the fates of these buildings is made.
5 comments:
yeah, yeah, I'm sure we need to keep a few of these specimens around. But where were the preservationists back when the modernists wanted to plow down all tradition in a bold rush to an internationally homogeneous future. Kind of ironic to me.
They were around, but they weren't as well organized. There's never an organized response to something until after it requires one. Who sets up foundations or activist groups for problems that don't exist?
Actually,the preservationists in New Orleans date back to the mid 1960's during the height of modernism, when I-10 was planned to drive through the center of the french quarter and hug the river's edge. They fought much of the Modernist development in the city, its one of the reason these schools need to be saved. There are relatively few modernist buildings in New Orleans, and one of the best, the Rivergate Convention Center, was lost years ago to Post-Modern progress.
Actually, that's what I was referring to. Historic preservation, as a mainstream movement, didn't really exist until the Modernists starting tearing down anything with a decent cornice.
PoMo, unlike Modernism, was an near-complete disaster, regardless of geography...
I agree that we need to keep a few of them around, however only two or three, I can thing of only a handfull of noteworthy architectural buildings in Louisiana, however they no longer meet the function requirements of the public school system. And as everyone knows "form follows function."
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