Several years ago I drove around New Orleans for about two hours—long enough to learn that the place is a charmless shithole.
On my way out of town, I was chased for several miles by some cracked-out asshole screaming and throwing objects at my rental car, for reasons that could only make sense to an addled mind.
Before that inglorious send-off, I drove through the French Quarter and the Garden District and was quite underwhelmed by New Orleans’ so-called architecture, which is little more than cheap cast iron slapped onto a lot of gaudy, poorly designed buildings.
I made a point of driving by the former Howard Memorial Library, completed in 18891 and ostensibly designed by H.H. Richardson,2 who grew up in New Orleans but wisely moved North to practice architecture.
Location of Howard Memorial Library
The building’s style is, of course, Romanesque—Richardson is credited with inventing the style. It’s not one of his better works, though, and was based on a rejected design for a Michigan library.3
Richardson never saw the building either: construction began a year after his death, and his successor firm, Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge, dusted off the plans and reworked them.4
Thus, it could reasonably be argued that Richardson didn’t design the building at all, although it’s often touted as his only work in the South. It certainly lacks the sophistication of his better Northern designs, but Richardson’s output was always hit-or-miss.
I also suspect that Shepley, Rutan, and Coolidge, who were originally Richardson’s assistants, were largely responsible for his later designs anyway, but that’s a discussion for another time.
I’d originally planned to take pictures of the library, but I’ll never set foot in New Orleans again, so this postcard will suffice.
On the front, S.S. writes:
“Good morning Edith. How did you enjoy the 4th.”
The card was addressed to Miss Edith Smith of Box 85, Clinton, Miss., and postmarked on July 5, 1907.
References
- “Opening the Howard Library.” The Daily Picayune (New Orleans), March 4, 1889, p. 4. ↩︎
- “Howard Memorial Library.” The Daily Picayune (New Orleans), January 30, 1887, p. 10. ↩︎
- The Howard Memorial Library – myneworleans.com ↩︎
- Howard Memorial Library | SAH ARCHIPEDIA ↩︎