Unlike Chicago and San Francisco, which
were brash young centers of economic expansion before the
Great Fire of 1871 and the earthquake of 1906, New Orleans
is, by American standards, an ancient city with a declining
economy. The population shrank by 150,000 from 1960 to 2000,
and 28 percent lived below the poverty level, more than twice
the national average. Most energy corporation headquarters
have moved away. Its location below sea level raises the possibility
that another catastrophic flood could hit the city. Yet the
suggestion among some that the city should be abandoned has
met with fierce opposition. Most who cherish the city for
its cultural legacy and its vital place in the nation’s
economy, especially due to its ports, want to concentrate
instead on effective rebuilding. Many questions remain unanswered,
not least being how reconstruction can help turn around the
city’s economic fortunes, and how can important architecture
be saved. Here’s what several designers have to say:
Hugh
Hardy, FAIA, partner, H3; member, New York New Visions,
a coalition of design professionals for rebuilding Lower
Manhattan after 9/11: Rebuilding New Orleans can
prove that America has values instead of just weapons. We’ve
let our social conscience atrophy. Mayor Ray Nagin and others
need to form a housing committee to assess the situation.
Residential buildings in the CBD that can house a lot of
people should be built first. I think a lot of the neighborhood
housing can be salvaged. There’s so much of it, and
the wood is 150 years old in some cases; it’s not going
to warp like modern framing.
Steve
Dumez, AIA, Eskew+Dumez+Ripple; past president AIA/Louisiana
and AIA/New Orleans: Given everything that New Orleans
means to so many people--the mythology, the culture, the
architecture, the spirit of the place--it’s shocking
to think of not rebuilding. We’re casting about now,
trying to establish groups, looking at 9/11 and other models.
After Hugo hit Charleston in 1989, Mayor Joseph P. Riley
was able to establish a design task force. He was a leader
with a vision of what was possible; he established clear
priorities.
Terrance
Brown, FAIA, ASCG Incorporated, Albuquerque, NM; co-chair,
AIA Disaster Assistance program: When whole neighborhoods
are flooded up to the eaves, everything in a house becomes
sopping wet, including insulation, wood, and foundations.
The ground, if it has clay in it, starts heaving. There’s
a massive amount that will have to be rebuilt. It may be
that many neighborhoods won’t come back.
Haste will create a tendency to build
back below current building codes. That’s a disaster
waiting to happen.
There will have to be planning to
get easy access in and out of town. And roads will have
to be raised, as will buildings. There will be political
pressure to rebuild right, and I think there’ll be
money for planning. Nobody’s going to want to go through
this agony again. Hurricanes are two, three times as frequent
as in the ‘70s.
Ernest
Hutton, Assoc. AIA, Hutton Associates, an urban design practice;
co-chair, New York New Visions: Some of the post-911
reconstruction lessons are negative. The Lower Manhattan
Development Corporation has been buffeted by every interest
focused on those 16 acres. Imagine the same thing happening
in New Orleans with 197 square miles! You need a broad-based
planning process, with neighborhood input, even while infrastructure
is being rebuilt. Transit-oriented development could mitigate
some of the problems we saw in the disaster.
Skipper
Post, FAIA, Post Architects, New Orleans, AIA past president:
I think it will be a smaller city. It’s a very important
port city, and that is something that should be preserved.
My concern is that New Orleans doesn’t become a Disney
World. I hope we don’t try to replicate what was there
with new technology and products.
Rebuilding is going to take a huge
workforce and I worry about where the workers can live.
So little livable housing remains. The west side of the
Mississippi is all marshes and bayous and lakes; there are
so few buildable areas.
Margaret
Helfand, FAIA, Margaret Helfand Architects; AIA/NY chapter
president; founder, New York New Visions: I’m
halfway between skeptical and cynical. In New Orleans there’s
no city left, no public to get involved in the rebuilding,
and at the end of the day, it’s all about process.
What we learned from Lower Manhattan is follow the money.
Politics trumps good intentions. With the number of property
owners and insurance issues in New Orleans, there will be
an infinite number of hoops to jump through if you hope
to improve on what was there before.
Lance
Brown, FAIA, Lance Jay Brown Architecture + Urban Design,
co-chair Disaster Preparedness Task Force, AIA/NY: We
should take a regional approach, preconditioning what we
do with New Orleans on what we do with Baton Rouge and Morgan
City. The physical, social, and economic conditions have
to be looked at as a system. You can’t bring back a
single district, like the French Quarter, without homes
and communities for workers. There will need to be a system
of housing subsidies to make homeownership affordable. After
disasters modest opportunities typically are seized upon
but visionary schemes are ignored.
Robert
Yaro, president, Regional Plan Association; convened Civic
Alliance to Rebuild New York after 9/11: The first
year after 9/11 we had a democratic process and decisions
came quickly. Public input did not slow the process. We
pushed for a thoughtful planning process, and we didn’t
get it. The New York Times and others kept pounding away
to get things done fast. In a place as polarized as New
Orleans it will be important to open the design process.
The tragedy is that unless you change the fundamentals,
you’re going to end up with something worse than before.
Today’s temporary housing will be the substandard housing
of tomorrow.
Allen
Eskew, FAIA, Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, New Orleans: We
want to fight for quality decision-making, based on best
practices and a planning ethic stressing social justice.
As with New Yorkers after 9/11, my partners and I are committed
to focusing on New Orleans. But this is different from 9/11;
this is the loss of our community, our culture, our music.
It would be a continuation of tragedy if Katrina ends in
decanting poor people out of New Orleans and disconnecting
them from their roots.
There’s already a surge to rebuild
by the heavy engineering companies. We’re afraid that
by the time people catch their breath and look up we might
have already lost the golden moment to put triage in place
and make the right moves.
David
Waggonner, AIA, Waggonner & Ball Architects, New Orleans:
When I read Daniel Libeskind saying that New Orleans
can be rebuilt more beautiful than it was, that’s b.s.
We have a beautiful street pattern and a continuous, eclectic,
and unique architectural tradition. People come here because
there’s character, and there’s little of that
left anywhere else. First there has to be analysis; how
can you know what to do when you don’t know where you
are?
I don’t think we want to go back
to segregating our housing by class. President Clinton’s
HOPE 6 program of mixed-use, mixed-class developments might
be a model. We also need a good model for a reconstruction
authority.
Success will depend on sufficient
study, good leadership, and finding balanced solutions.
Trey
Trahan, AIA, Trahan Architects, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
There are so many questions. What should our role be in
restoring historic properties in the Gulf? Do we need to
revisit our codes, rethinking them for historic buildings?
And maybe we need to rethink facilities like hospitals,
so that if people can’t escape they’re safe above
flood levels. We can put cars, for example, on lower floors.
How do we not end up with houses resembling bunkers that
are able to withstand a category 5 hurricane but lacking
in so many important ways? On a more cosmic scale, what
happens when the architectural soul of the South is affected,
and to some extent destroyed?
Errol
Barron, FAIA, Errol Barron/Michael Toups Architects, New
Orleans, Favrot Professor of Architecture, Tulane University:
The modest, inexpensive buildings (especially of the outer
non - tourist neighborhoods) are curiously resistant to
the effects of nature. They are raised, they breathe because
of their loose assembly of planks and boards, they are protected
from the sun by attics (that saved many from drowning),
and they are amazingly flexible, bending and warping to
the forces of wind and gravity. Once drained, they will
dry out quickly and can be cleaned up, set back on their
piers and reinhabited.
Like many, I fear the insurance company
penchant for demolition. Perhaps write offs will save paper
work and clerical labor but what is at stake is an urban
model that is unique to our country that should not be lost
for two reasons. 1. These narrow fragile buildings are tougher
than they look and are the residential fabric of a city,
which is alone in our country in the type of city life it
contains and nurtures. Let’s rebuild, anew, if necessary,
but for the most part by simply drying out and moving in.
New Orleans is vulnerable but durable and as resilient as
its dilapidated “looking” wood houses. We should
not worry about the clean up, patina is a given in this
humid climate.
Belinda
Stewart, AIA, Eupora, Mississippi, Belinda Stewart Architects:
I think it’s hard for people to understand the staggering
extent of the damage. My office is five hours from New Orleans,
and we have damage. Even people who weren’t displaced
have a lot of work to do.
I worry that the architectural character
of the area will change, that people coming in won’t
care about community and what our architecture says about
our region and our cultural identity. I worry about becoming
a cookie cutter region. Whoever takes charge will need to
determine needs and what’s important before proceeding.
The problems with the relief effort so far make me worry
how people can be given back a home with identity.
There’s a big population shift
occurring. In our town of 2,500, we already have people
coming in wanting to buy, and in Oxford, I hear, there are
many more ready to buy at any price. It’s interesting
to see how the south will change. Anytime you have populations
moving, there’s opportunity. We’re talking about
our town’s most historic, not-yet-restored neighborhood
becoming a place for people to relocate. The disaster might
be an opportunity to turn around some languishing small
towns that step up to the plate and fill a need.
