Major Projects Propose Ambitious Vision For New Orleans
Two planned projects in New Orleans -- a jazz center and a mixed-use park -- reveal ambitious visions for the future of a city still in the process of recovering. But the scale of the projects would require extensive state and federal support.
"Amid this atmosphere of malaise, two recently announced projects for downtown New Orleans stand out as the first truly creative attempts to foster the city’s resurrection. The first, an extravagant proposal for a new New Orleans National Jazz Center and park by Morphosis, is the most significant work of architecture proposed in the city since the Superdome. The second, a six-mile-long park and mixed-use development along the Mississippi, designed by TEN Arquitectos, Hargreaves Associates and Chan Krieger Sieniewicz, would undo decades of misguided building on the riverfront."
"The design of the riverfront project has yet to be finished; even the developer concedes that it would take years to build under the best conditions. And construction of the park would probably require the cooperation of city, state and federal agencies — an almost laughable notion, based on recent experience."
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Ouroussoff On Urban Design
The best thing that the New York Times' architecture critic says about Thom Mayne's project is that it would fit right in with the elevated freeway that is near it - and he considers this a complement:
The center, however, is firmly rooted in the postwar context of downtown New Orleans. Situated on the corner of Poydras Street and Loyola Avenue, it would be flanked by cool glass towers. An elevated section of Interstate 10 cuts through the city just to the west; the imposing form of the Superdome, its broad crisscrossing ramps extending from the street right through the structure, stands just a block away. Like the Superdome, the Jazz Center would be a piece of urban infrastructure: big, tilting columns raise one end...."
Just as ugly and just as brutal as the Interstate - that is what we need to revive New Orleans.
Charles Siegel