Putting New Orleans On the Green Line

(By Thom Mayne -- Morphosis)

Mayne's proposed performing-arts center and park -- next to the Superdome and anchored by the National Jazz Center -- could do much more, converting the symbol of devastation into a world-class destination. The private-public project is sponsored by Strategic Hotels & Resorts, the Chicago-based owners of a Hyatt Regency Hotel at the proposal's center (the owners' inspiration came from Millennium Park, which transformed Chicago's downtown).

Reed Kroloff, Tulane University dean of architecture and a juror for Global Green's contest, points out that designers have volunteered and contributed money since immediately after Katrina hit. Architecture for Humanity is organizing rebuilding in Mississippi and Louisiana. Tulane is providing master-planning for free and helping to design five prototype houses to jump-start the rebuilding process. And a house designed with the Massachusetts Institute for Technology will include advanced technology, Kroloff said.

"We're hoping what will come to pass in New Orleans," Kroloff said," is a new vernacular for the city," one that accommodates "the historic precedents that are so strong and dear to us but that looks confidently and creatively toward the future."

(Kroloff served as urban design chairman of Mayor Ray Nagin's Bring New Orleans Back Commission, which in January completed a rebuilding plan. While standing on the front step of a house that no longer exists, Kroloff explained how a political tug of war halted action on the plan. Private developers are waiting to see what happens to federal funding, which has been appropriated but is not flowing, he said.)

Contests have emerged as the most prominent counterbalance to Habitat for Humanity kit-houses, which are rising in New Orleans. Experts believe higher-density housing might become the norm if parts of the city cannot be rebuilt safely. Tulane and Architectural Record magazine confronted that issue with a competition called "High Density on the High Ground." More than 500 architects responded with proposals for sustainable apartment living above the floodwaters, including avant-garde constructions with nary a French accent. In addition, architectural students designed post-Katrina shotgun houses and Creole cottages for a New Orleans Prototype House Competition. Entries to the competitions will be displayed this fall in the U.S. Pavilion at the 10th International Architectural Exhibition in Venice.

The value of contests might be largely symbolic, but as Mayne points out, they are hopeful signs that "things are going to take place, that it is possible to take this disaster and make something of it."

Mayne, who was last in New Orleans in November, said: "It is shocking how little has been done. It's an embarrassment."

If rebuilding only required the nod from interested designers, the Gulf Coast, especially New Orleans, would be humming with life.

"It takes economic tools to make it happen," Mayne said. "We're back at the White House. You can tout [ideas] in that room, and everybody would shake their heads. 'We agree. Next? What is your proposal?' "