Architecture
New Orleans has the most distinctive cityscape in the USA. This sense of place is directly attributable to its great quantity of historic homes, and the cohesion of so many of its neighborhoods. The French Quarter and Garden District have long been considered exemplars of New Orleans architecture, but send the Tremé, the Marigny or the Irish Channel to another city, and they would stand out as treasure troves of history and heritage.
Cross-section of a City
There are 171 sites in Orleans Parish listed on the National Register of Historic Places. While we stress that there’s more to the city’s architecture than the French Quarter and Garden District, those neighborhoods do nicely illustrate the pronounced difference between the two ‘sectors’ of New Orleans: Creole and American. It’s worth noting that there is no perfect split between the two sides of the city; Creole cottages can be found Uptown, and shotgun houses pack Bywater and the Marigny.
The Quarter and Creole ‘faubourgs’ (Marigny, Bywater and the Tremé) downriver from Canal St are densely packed with stuccoed brick structures built in various architectural styles and housing types that are rarely found in other US cities. This is where you’ll find a glut of candy-colored Euro-Caribbean buildings that seem transplanted into North America.
Cross Canal St and you’ll find the wide lots and luxuriant houses of the Garden District more closely resemble upscale homes found throughout the South. This is big mansion territory, but you’ll also find thousands of shotgun houses lining these blocks. As one heads up the river into the heart of the Garden District and Uptown, the displays of wealth intensify to the point of near-gaudiness, although the effect scales back a little closer to Tulane and Loyola Universities.
It is worth noting that for all of the city’s preservation credentials, fire, rot, hurricanes and redevelopment have all taken their toll on the city’s historical building stock. Currently, roughly 25 buildings only survive intact from the French and Spanish Colonial age; good examples include the Ursuline Convent, Presbytère and Cabildo.
French Colonial Houses
Surviving structures from the French period are rare. New Orleans was a French colony only from 1718 until the Spanish takeover in 1762, and twice during the Spanish period fires destroyed much of the town. Only one French Quarter building, the Ursuline Convent, remains from the French period. The convent was built for the climate of French Canada, but the French recognized Caribbean design was more appropriate in New Orleans.
Madame John’s Legacy, at 628 Dumaine St, is a good example of a French Caribbean home. Marked by a steep hipped roof, casement windows and batten shutters, it possesses galleries – covered porches – that help keep the house cool in summer. These galleries served to shade rooms from direct light and rainfall.
Out on Bayou St John, the Pitot House, home of the city’s first mayor, is another signature French Colonial compound. A huge 2nd-floor wraparound balcony essentially served as the house’s living space during the summer months. Furniture would be moved outdoors (even the beds), and residents would take advantage of the breeze to cool themselves off from the summer swelter. This practice of moving a living space into the outdoors (to say nothing of a focus on gardens and fountains) has roots in North Africa, from where the idea spread to Spain, and later this French Spanish colony.
If you head outside of the city, the Laura Plantation, located an hour west of New Orleans, is an excellent example of a French Creole plantation. The raised main house (along with much of the rest of the compound) was built by highly skilled slaves who undoubtedly imported some West African building techniques into the design.
Spanish Colonial Houses
During the Spanish period, adjacent buildings were designed to rub shoulders, with no space between, which created the continuous facade of the French Quarter. While some cottages were built during this time, the signature home of the period is the two-story town house, with commercial space on the ground floor and residential quarters upstairs. While properties were adjacent on the street, there was usually an open area behind the lot, and this space was converted into a well-shaded, private courtyard, used like a family room. Arches, tiled roofs and balconies with ornate wrought-iron railings became common.
Creole Town Houses
Very few buildings survive from the Spanish Colonial period, and not all the survivors reflect the Spanish style. But the Creoles of New Orleans appreciated Spanish architecture and regularly applied its key elements (especially the courtyard, carriageway and loggia) to French Quarter town houses. Most surviving examples date from the American period. An especially elaborate three-story example of the Creole town house, with key Spanish elements, is Napoleon House.
Creole town houses are most common by far within the French Quarter, where they make up much of the area’s residential and commercial stock. A few survive within the CBD and Warehouse District, although many of these have been rebuilt or renovated in such a manner that they are no longer true examples of the style.
Perhaps the most distinctive element of a Creole town house, particularly those within the French Quarter, is the balcony. Made from wrought iron, and often wrapped around corners, balconies were valuable slices of living space during the intense heat of the summer months. Residents would spend so much time on their balconies, dividers would be built between adjoining balconies. In some places, you may see ‘Romeo Spikes’ – wickedly sharp points meant to prevent potential suitors from shimmying up a balcony pole to a waiting paramour.
Creole and Spanish town houses share many similarities, and many of the Quarter homes built after the fires of 1788 and 1794 share elements of both styles.
Creole Cottages
The most basic historical structure in New Orleans is also one of its most iconic, and particularly obvious as you head downriver from Canal St. The largest concentration of freestanding Creole cottages are found throughout the French Quarter, the Tremé, Faubourg Marigny and Bywater.
Essentially, a Creole cottage is a square, divided into four smaller squares; while this is the simplest version of the structure, it is one that can be found across the city, but in very few other places in the USA, barring a few other Gulf of Mexico communities.
True Creole cottages are one-and-a-half-story buildings. They feature high-gabled, sharply sloping roofs and, sometimes, full covered front porches (airy spaces that are crucial during the summer months). With that said, urban Creole cottages, which you are likely to encounter within the French Quarter, Tremé and Faubourg Marigny, generally lack a porch. Either way, Creole cottages lack hallways or corridors and are generally built to the edge of the property line – in other words, they lack anything like a front yard.
The front of the house usually has two casement doors, sometimes four. These openings are often shuttered to shield the interior space from sidewalk traffic, which can be passing within inches away. The airy floor plan has four interconnected chambers, each with an opening (a door or window) to the side of the house. These openings allow for a degree of air flow, providing another cooling mechanism against the heat.
Shotgun Houses
During the latter half of the 19th century, the inexpensive shotgun became a popular single-family dwelling. The name supposedly derives from the legend that a bullet could be fired from front to back through the open doorways of all of the rooms, but in truth only the most basic shotguns have doors lined up so perfectly. It’s also worth noting that some historians believe the name may derive from a West African word. The shotgun style is not unique to New Orleans, and similar homes can be found throughout much of the Caribbean, especially Haiti, lending credence to some kind of African diaspora origin.
The standard ‘single-shotgun’ house is a row of rooms with doors leading from one to the next. As there is no hall, you pass through each room to traverse the house. Shotguns are freestanding, with narrow spaces along either side. Windows on both sides and high ceilings encourage cross-ventilation and keep the rooms cool. The narrow style of home is a good fit for an urban space; while shotguns are detached housing, they can be clustered together in high density.
‘Double-shotguns’ are duplexes, with mirror-image halves traditionally forming two homes. Many double-shotguns have been converted into large single homes; it’s a New Orleanian real-estate cliché for someone to buy a double-shotgun, rent out one half, and then knock down the center wall and create a large single home once they’re ready to start a family.
Other variations upon the simple shotgun formula include ‘camel-backs,’ which have a 2nd floor above the back of the house, and ‘sidehall’ homes, with a corridor appended to the stacked squares of the shotgun.
Greek Revival
Perhaps no style symbolizes the wealth and showiness of mid-19th-century America than Greek Revival architecture. The genre, readily recognizable for its tall columns, was inspired by classics such as the Parthenon. Greek Revival houses can be found along St Charles Ave in Uptown and in the Garden District. A nice example is the raised villa at 2127 Prytania St.
Five-Bay Center Hall Houses
The one-and-a-half-story center hall house became common with the arrival of more Anglo-Americans to New Orleans after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The raised center hall house, found in the Garden District and Uptown, became the most usual type; it stands on a pier foundation 2ft to 8ft above ground, and its columned front gallery spans the entire width of the house.
Double Gallery Houses
Double gallery houses were built throughout the 19th century (most commonly between 1820 and 1850) on Esplanade Ridge and the upriver side of Canal, primarily in Uptown and the Lower Garden and Garden Districts. All of these neighborhoods were considered ‘suburbs’ at the time; double gallery homes were built by those seeking space. These two-story houses are set back from the property line and feature a two-story gallery, or porch, framed and supported by columns. The front door is usually set to one side.
Today, many double gallery homes are split into multiple units, with the owners occupying one floor and renters another (usually with separate entrances). Other double gallery residences have been split into separate condo units.
Italianate Style
The Italianate style, inspired by Tuscan villas, gained popularity after the Civil War. Segmental arches, frequently used over doors and windows, and the decorative box-like parapets over galleries are commonly identified as Italianate features.