Description
The early architecture of Louisiana, carefully recorded in beautiful drawings submitted by the colonial officials to their superiors in France, was designed and built by trained professionals. The province continued to be dominated by French culture, French language and French law long after it was sold to the United States in 1803. While the French continued their traditions, in the areas of the state outside French settlement different architectural styles were brought by settlers from the Eastern states. In the 1830’s Louisiana became a cultural battleground between the traditions of France brought by way of the Caribbean and those of England brought by settlers from the Atlantic coast.
The best drawings produced by the colonial officials from archives in France, charming house drawings from the New Orleans Notarial Archives, Greek Revival designs by James Gallier and James Dakin from several libraries are gathered together as part of a remarkable documentary record of buildings–and the progress of the profession of architecture in America. The most famous buildings are illustrated and discussed–the Ursuline Convent, the Cabildo, Presbytère and Cathedral in New Orleans and the monumental columned houses along the Mississippi. But there are also many surprises–the majestic St. Charles Hotel with its 185-foot-high dome, Belle Grove, a sprawling Romantic villa in ruins and the many buildings by one of the Old South’s greatest forgotten architects, J.N.B. dePouilly. An entire chapter is devoted to the Louisiana plantation house and the two separate traditions–French and English–that created them. Louisiana remains one of the most distinctive, indeed “foreign,” states of the Old South.
Architecture of the Old South: Louisiana, Louisiana, architecture, architects, southern, Southern history, plantations, France, French, England, English, Spain, Spanish, Old South, antebellum, The South, American, American history, Louisiana architecture, Southern architecture, American architecture, historic buildings, photographs, drawings, floor plans, elevations, maps, travel, travel guide, Mills Lane, Van Jones Martin, Jonathan Fricker, Ann M. Masson, Gene Carpenter, Samuel Wilson Jr., Colonial, French Colonial, French plantation house, Federal, Greek Revival, Romantic, Egyptian Revival, Gothic, Gothic Revival, Ecclesiological Gothic, Ecclesiastical Gothic, Italian Villa, Italianate, castles, villas, octagons, New Orleans, Ursuline Convent, Cabildo, Presbytere, St. Louis Cathedral, St. Charles Hotel, Belle Grove, J.N.B. dePouilly, J.N.B. de Pouilly, Archives de France, Mississippi River, Benjamin Latrobe, Henry Latrobe, James Gallier, James Gallier Sr., James Gallier Jr., Hermann-Grima House, Parlange, Destrehan, Shadows-on-the-Teche, Evergreen, Oak Alley, The Hermitage, Houmas House, Uncle Sam, Bocage, San Francisco, bousillage, Frederick Law Olmsted, Henry Howard, Edward W. Sewell, James Dakin, Charles Dakin, Henry Mollhausen, Albert Diettel, Madewood, Nottoway, Richard Delafield, George Clarkson, Alexander T. Wood, George Purves, Lewis Ethan Reynolds, Thomas K. Wharton, James Stuart, Nicholas Revett, Antiquities of Athens, Minard Lafever, Asher Benjamin, Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, Ithiel Town, A.J. Davis, Alexander Jackson Davis, Isaiah Rogers, Pontalba Buildings, St. Patrick’s Church, John Henry Hopkins, Robert Mills, Baton Rouge, Afton Villa, A.J. Downing, Andrew Jackson Downing, James Gallier House, Gallier House, Natchitoches, River Road, New Iberia, Shreveport, New Orleans Notorial Archives, Historic New Orleans Collection, Caribbean
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