Environment
Starchitects Invited to New Orleans Waterfront
(archrecord.construction.com - 11/07/2006)
By Sam
Lubell
The New Orleans Building Corporation,
a public benefit corporation that owns, develops, and operates
properties owned by the city, is turning to big-name architects
to help develop a stretch of the city’s riverfront.
On November 3 the group announced five
finalist teams made up of architects, urban planners, landscape
architects, engineers, and consultants. Architects on the
teams include Zaha Hadid with Baton Rouge-based Trahan Architects;
New York–based Reiser + Umemoto with New Orleans–based
Studio Matrixx; Frank Gehry, FAIA; Mexican firm TEN Arquitectos
with New Orleans–based Eskew+Dumez+Ripple; and Studio
Daniel Libeskind with New Orleans–based Mathes Brieere
Architects.
“I’m thrilled that people
recognized at the top of their profession have stepped up,”
says the building corporations executive director Sean Cummings,
a local hotel developer. “It would be really exciting
for this community to do something very contemporary that
is still based in this place.” The group had issued a
request for qualifications on September 18, sending special
invitations to big names including Gehry, Santiago Calatrava,
FAIA, Richard Rogers, Morphosis, Rem Koolhas, Norman Foster,
Hadid, SOM, Rafael Viñoly, FAIA, SHoP Architects, and
Field Operations. The corporation has a $500,000 budget for
its search.
The potential development zone includes
a largely derelict 4.5-mile stretch of the north bank of the
Mississippi River between Jackson Avenue and the Industrial
Canal, which now includes mostly wharves and port facilities.
It borders the Lower Garden district, the warehouse district,
the French Quarter, Marigny, and Baywater.
The RFQ calls for new commercial, cultural,
park, and transportation uses for the area, and for maintaining
cruise and cargo operations. This, says Cummings, could include
a continuous park with walking and bike paths, museums, a
large performance venue, a culinary university campus, and
modern cruise ship terminals. He stresses that the area will
be oriented to public facilities, not ”condominiums and
private property.”
Besides wharves, the area already includes
several hotels, the city’s Morial Convention Center,
its Aquarium of the Americas, Jax Brewery, and a riverside
promenade.
“As far as architecture,”
Cummings says, “New Orleans has been a fairly insular
community. We now have a chance to reach out to some of the
finest minds in the world. It’s time to elevate our game.”
The RFQ, however, urged ”visionary, yet practical responses,”
adding, “Respondents are urged to think outside the box,
but to remember that the box must still be built at an affordable
price.”
The New Orleans Building Corporation
will select a winning team on November 29. Cummings says that
once a selection is made, the corporation will investigate
funding. It is unclear how elegantly nearby neighborhood plans
will meld with the winning scheme. Not far from the New Orleans
Superdome, for example, Strategic Hotels CEO Laurence Geller
has hired Thom Mayne, FAIA, to plan a $700 million development
that, if realized, would include a refurbished Hyatt Hotel,
a performing arts center and museum, a new courthouse, and
several new residential buildings. Several sets of planning
guidelines have been completed or are underway.
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