Buildings and architecture of New Orleans

Creole cottages are scattered throughout the city of New Orleans, with most being built between 1790 and 1850. The majority of these cottages are found in the French Quarter, the surrounding areas of Faubourg Marigny, the Bywater, and Esplanade Ridge. Creole cottages are 1½-story, set at ground level. They have a steeply pitched roof, with a symmetrical four-opening façade wall and a wood or stucco exterior. They are usually set close to the property line.^[1][2]

• Creole cottage variations
• 
  Side gabled roof with narrow gabled dormer windows and an abat-vent roof extension^[2]
• 
  French doors and two double hung windows^[2]

Many buildings in the American

Creole townhouses are perhaps the most iconic pieces of architecture in the city of New Orleans, comprising a large portion of the French Quarter and the neighboring Faubourg Marigny. Creole townhouses were built after the Great New Orleans Fire (1788), until the mid-19th century. The prior wooden buildings were replaced with structures with courtyards, thick walls, arcades, and cast-iron balconies. The façade of the building sits on the property line, with an asymmetrical arrangement of arched openings. Creole townhouses have a steeply-pitched roof with parapets, side-gabled, with several roof dormers and strongly show their French and Spanish influence. The exterior is made of brick or stucco.^[4][2]

Shotgun house

The shotgun house is a narrow domestic residence with doors at each end. This style of architecture developed in New Orleans and is the city's predominant house type. The earliest extant New Orleans shotgun house, at 937 St. Andrews St., was built in 1848.^{[citation needed]} Typically, shotgun houses are one-story, narrow rectangular homes raised on brick piers. Most have a narrow porch covered by a roof apron that is supported by columns and brackets, which are often ornamented with lacy Victorian motifs. Many variations of the shotgun house exist, including double shotguns (essentially a

• Shotgun variations
• 
  Shotgun house in Uptown
• 
  Double shotgun houses in French Quarter
• 
  Double shotgun camelback (or shotgun double camelback)^[6] in Carrollton
• 
  Double-width shotgun (right) in the Garden District

Double-gallery house

Double-gallery houses were built in New Orleans between 1820 and 1850. Double-gallery houses are two-story houses with a side-gabled or hipped roof. The house is set back from the property line, and it has a covered two-story gallery which is framed and supported by columns supporting the entablature.

The façade has an asymmetrical arrangement of its openings. These homes were built as a variation on the American townhouses built in the

French Quarter

Due to refurbishings in the Victorian style after the

Following the two great fires of New Orleans in the late 18th century, Spanish administrators enforced strict building codes, requiring strong brick construction and thick fire proof walls between adjoining buildings to avoid another city fire and to resist hurricanes but the Spanish did not directly influence much of the Quarter's architecture. Spanish influence came indirectly in the form of Creole style, a mixture of French and Spanish architecture with some elements from the Caribbean.

Two-thirds of the French Quarter structures date from the first half of the 19th century, the most prolific decade being the 1820s, when the city was growing at an amazing rate. Records show that not a single Spanish architect was operating in the city by that time; only French and American were, the latter gradually replacing the former as Creole style was being replaced by Greek revival architecture in the 1830s and 1840s.

From its south end to the intersection with Claiborne Avenue, Canal Street is extremely dense with buildings. Each building, being no larger than half a New Orleans block, has a notably intricate façade. All of these buildings contrast each other in style, from Greek revival, Art Nouveau, and Art Deco, to Renaissance Colonial, and one of Gothic architecture. Also there is Post-modern, Mid-century modern, Streamline Moderne, and other types of 20th-century architecture. However, most of these buildings have lost their original interiors because of hurricane damage and business renovations.

St. Charles Avenue is famed for its large collection of Southern mansions in many styles of architecture, including Greek Revival, Colonial, and Victorian styles such as Italianate and Queen Anne.

The city of New Orleans was the largest in the

For much of its history,

New Orleans is known for its elaborate European-style cemeteries, including Greenwood Cemetery, Saint Louis Cemeteries, and Metairie Cemetery. Because of New Orleans' high water table, graves are not dug "six feet under": stone tombs were the norm. Many cemeteries in New Orleans have historical significance.

Preservation

Many organizations, notably the Friends of the Cabildo^[7] and the Preservation Resource Center,^[8] are devoted to promoting the preservation of historic neighborhoods and buildings in New Orleans. New Orleans has suffered from the same problems with sinking property values and urban decline as other major cities. Many historic structures have been threatened with demolition. During Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, several historic New Orleans neighborhoods were flooded, and numerous historic buildings were severely damaged. However, there is a general notion by both rebuilders and new developers to preserve the architectural integrity of the city.

Notable structures

See also

• American colonial architecture - includes French and Spanish colonial style
• National Register of Historic Places listings in Orleans Parish, Louisiana
• History of New Orleans
• List of tallest buildings in New Orleans
• List of streets of New Orleans
• Neighborhoods in New Orleans
• James H. Dakin
• James Gallier
• Benjamin Henry Latrobe

References

Further reading

Bruno, R. Stephanie (2011). New Orleans Streets: A Walker's Guide to Neighborhood Architecture. Pelican Publishing.

ISBN 978-1589808744

.

Campanella, Richard, Geographies of New Orleans : Urban Fabrics before the Storm, Gretna, LA, Pelican Publishing, 2006.

Kingsley, Karen. Buildings of Louisiana, New York: Society of Architectural Historians, 2003.

Lewis, Peirce. New Orleans: The Making of an Urban Landscape, 2nd ed., Santa Fe, NM: Center for American Places, 2003.

Toledano, Roulhac B. (2010). A Pattern Book of New Orleans Architecture. Pelican Publishing.

ISBN 978-1589806948

.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Buildings in New Orleans.

• Vieux Carré Commission, City of New Orleans
• New Orleans Architecture
• Preservation Resource Center
• Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries