Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Romanticism + Regionalism

I saw in Louisiana a live-oak growing,
All alone stood it and the moss hung down from the branches,
Without any companion it grew there uttering joyous leaves of dark green,
And its look, rude, unbending, lusty, made me think of myself,
But I wondered how it could utter joyous leaves standing alone there without
its friend near, for I knew I could not,
And I broke off a twig with a certain number of leaves upon it, and twined
around it a little moss,
And brought it away, and I have placed it in sight, in my room,
It is not needed to remind me as of my own dear friends,
(For I believe lately I think of little else than of them,)
Yet it remains to me a curious token, it makes me think of manly love;
For all that, and though the live-oak glistens there in Louisiana solitary in
a wide flat space,
Uttering joyous leaves all its life without a friend a lover near,
I know very well I could not.

[Walt Whitman, from Leaves of Grass, photo by Francine Stock]

Monday, August 15, 2011

National Bank of Commerce (Tulane branch) 1958


, originally uploaded by .

In 1956 construction began on National Bank of Commerce Tulane Avenue branch near Jefferson Davis Parkway.

Architects Curtis and Davis designed the office building with ample natural light for the 7300 SF of office space on each of the six floors. The cantilevered zig zag entrance canopy provided minimal ornamentation to an otherwise simplistic facade.

Construction was completed in 1958 by R.P. Farnsworth and Company.

[source: Times-Picayune, 05-16-1956, 10-17-1958]